Imposter
by wolfraven80
Summary: Rose/10.5 For Rose and the Doctor, there's noting quite like a few holes in the universe to spoil a perfectly good day. Soon the investigation has them following their own footprints along a familiar trail as they try to prevent dimensional collapse. Are they facing an old foe, a new one, or something from their past that may well destroy their hope for a future together?
1. Prologue

**Imposter**

**Prologue**

_Click. Click. Click._

The Doctor flicked between three live feeds of the same event, his eyes scanning the scrolling text at the bottom of the television screen. The glow it cast around the darkened room reminded him of the TARDIS's engines, and his single heart ached at the memory.

_Click. Click. Click._

Rubbing his chin, he felt bristle beneath his fingertips, and with his mussed hair and rumpled flannel pajamas, he knew he didn't look his normal dapper self. But being human required so much... _effort_. In a while he'd have to tear himself away from the proceedings in order to commence the morning drudgery of showering, shaving, brushing his teeth. He had to floss now. A Time Lord–flossing! But as Rose frequently reminded him, he couldn't just get a new set of teeth this time around. And he had to admit that experiencing this era's version of dental care was something he'd like to put off for as long as possible.

On the screen, a tall reptilian humanoid draped in ceremonial battle armour stood ramrod straight, delivering long strands of indecipherable syllables, which the scrolling text attempted to keep pace with. The Doctor's eyes took in the words and then he flipped to the next channel and the next, noting the differences. "Windy headlands," in one was replaced by "wind-swept cliffs," in the next, and the third took a flying leap into, "the breezy beachfront," earning a grimace from him. It was a pity he'd never taken the time to learn Draconian. Earth's shiny new translation softwares, much touted by GeoComTex, were no match for the TARDIS's translation circuits. The Doctor's TARDIS.

Hand resting on his chest, over that strange single heartbeat, he drew in a slow breath and turned back to the screen, just as the words scrolled to, "the rolling storm." _Click_. "The approaching thunderclouds." _Click_. "The oncoming storm."

He sat bolt upright and stared.

"Doctor?" The query was followed by footfalls, padding across the bedroom carpet. He looked up to see Rose peering at him blearily in her pajamas in the bedroom doorway. She fumbled for a light switch. Lights sprang to life in the room behind her, surrounding her with a glowing halo, and for a moment she was transformed into a memory.

_I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself._

Though it had been through another set of eyes, he could still recall what it had been to look up at her, surrounded by a halo of bright light, eyes blazing with it, transformed into something otherworldly, eternal... and fragile.

Rose stepped out of the pool of light and into the darkened living room towards him. "Are you all right?"

He shook himself. "Yes! Fine! Brilliant!"

"What time is it?"

"Four-thirty," he replied, with perhaps more enthusiasm than the hour warranted if the pained expression on her face was any indication. "Just nipped off to watch the Olympics. Kuala Lumpur– very exciting!"

Groaning, Rose slumped down next to him on the sofa. "You could stream it later, you know."

He pouted. "It's not the same as watching it live. Living history, Rose! The first non-human at the Olympic Games."

"And what's he doing exactly? Announcing his invasion plans?"

"He's reciting a traditional Draconian battle poem in honour of the athletes."

"A poem," Rose repeated, incredulous.

"Nothing like a good war poem to befuddle primitive translation software."

She pulled her knees up to her chest and sank back into the sofa cushions. "You snuck out of bed before sunup to watch a lizard read poetry on the tele."

"Oh," he said, scrunching up his face and giving a little shrug, "I was awake anyway. Don't need much sleep."

He slept as little as ever now, but he dreamed more. Or perhaps he _remembered_ more. It was hard to tell. His memories were every bit as strange and dreamlike sometimes as what he saw in his sleep.

She looked up at him, and he began to talk very quickly before she could ask again if he was all right. "Back in our world, Earth doesn't make official contact withe Draconians for well over hundred years. Even the Olympics–different year, different place– everything different." He squinted again at the screen and the scrolling lines of poorly translated poetry. "All that travel through time and space, all that knowledge of history, and then I come here and– poof!"

He must not have sounded nearly as glib as he'd intended, because Rose reached for his hand, interlacing her fingers with his. "I know it's not what you planned," she said quietly. "Being stuck here." He glanced down at her in time to see a grin spread across her face. "But at least you didn't have to get a mortgage."

He smiled back. Pete had bought Rose the flat. In this world she was heir to a family fortune. "True enough. I'm a kept man now."

"Mmm. I like the sound of that," she said, cuddling closer to him. She leaned in to whisper in his ear. "I'm planning on keeping you forever." And then, with another squeeze of his hand, she hoisted herself off the sofa. "Guess if I can't get back to sleep I might as well get some tea."

"Rose," he said, as she stepped toward the kitchen. She paused, turning to him. "Stuck with you, that's not so bad."

The smile she gave him made his one heart soar.

As she began preparing her caffeinated beverage of choice, he turned once more to the television. The Draconian had finished his poem, and the Doctor clicked away to the next channel. A vintage cartoon sprang to life, with three pigs gambolling about and singing, "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?"

And then he changed the channel. Because there was, after all, such a thing as a coincidence.


	2. One

**One**

They walked into the Torchwood Institute hand in hand, smiling and greeting coworkers amiably. It had been at bit odd for the Doctor to begin working for the organization that had precipitated his separation from Rose, but since it had also been instrumental in reuniting them, he figured they could call it even. His smile never faltered even as they reached the main office and were met with the acerbic tones of their boss.

"If the two of you were any sweeter I'd need an insulin shot," said Diana Goddard as she marched towards them, her dark suit pristine, her black pumps clattering on floor. Instead of the ambitious assistant of Henry van Statten that the Doctor had met in his previous incarnation, this world's Goddard carried herself like a soldier. She'd been in London during the battle with the Cybermen and had made a name for herself, rising to be a top administrator for Torchwood One.

"That's us," the Doctor replied, flashing a wide grin. "Ruining pancreases, rotting teeth, making children hyper. In fact, one time–"

"Shut it, Smith. I don't have time for your little stories today. But I do," she said gesturing toward behind her, "have a new playmate for you. Mr. Mitchell," she barked, and a young man scurried to join them. She turned to the Doctor. "I don't believe you've met Adam Mitchell. He was on assignment with UNIT when you first joined. He's been on medical leave since then but he's back with Torchwood now."

He had the same short dark hair and slightly unkempt look that the Doctor remembered from their brief time together... well the brief time with the _other_ Adam Mitchell. Before kicking him out of the TARDIS for having an infospike installed in his forehead, like a grotesque mechanical third eye.

"Doctor Smith," Adam said, holding his hand out.

Without a word, the Doctor raised his hand in front of Adam's face... and snapped his fingers. Nothing happened. "Just checking," the Doctor said. Next to him, Rose was stifling a laugh.

Adam glowered at the Doctor. "What is that? Some sort of–of in-joke? She did the same thing when we were introduced," he said, turning to scowl at Rose as well.

"You just look a lot like someone we used to know," Rose offered, putting on her best smile.

Goddard stepped in before Adam could reply to that. "Mr. Mitchell will be working on the interface systems for our new acquisitions." New acquisitions indeed. That was Torchwood talk for any sort of alien tech they'd managed to get their grimy little paws on. "He'll be working out of your laboratory for the time being." The Doctor was ready to protest but she rounded on him before he even got a syllable out. "And _you_ forgot to send me that report on your facility's energy consumption."

"I _do not_ forget things," the Doctor retorted, obviously offended. "I sent it out last week."

Goddard raised an eyebrow. "I don't remember seeing it, so if you didn't forget then it must have gotten lost."

"Brilliant," he drawled. "Has anything else gotten lost? Nuclear launch codes maybe? Should I start checking for the lost moon of Poosh while I'm at it? I found it once. I suppose I could do it again."

Adam stared. "The lost moon of what?"

"Long story, never mind," Rose said, elbowing the Doctor in the ribs.

He assumed an injured air for a moment but it quickly turned to a puzzled one as the lights above them dimmed and remained that way for several seconds.

"This is what I'm talking about," Goddard snapped. "Tech team says the energy drain is linked to your departmemt."

"That's not possible," the Doctor said, still frowning at the lights as they returned to normal brightness. "I'm not working on anything that would redirect that much power."

"Maybe you should double check all of your toys because _something_ is doing it and we've already gone through everything in storage."

He heaved a very audible sigh and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. "Right then, energy consumption report. I'll just be getting on with that then." He gave Rose a jaunty wave and then turned and headed for his lab, leaving Adam to trail after him like a lost pup.

**ooo**

The Doctor, alias John "The Doctor" Smith or Doctor John Smith depending on who you asked, was usually left to his own devices down in Torchwood's R&D division. He didn't require a big spending budget and so was able to fly under the bureaucratic radar. The bulk of his work at Torchwood was as a consultant. They brought him recovered pieces of alien technology and he told them what they did, whether they still worked or could be repaired, whether they were dangerous. He was also consulted in matters of experimental technology. Would it work? Was it worth pursuing? Would it punch a hole in the dimensional barrier and lead to the collapse of the universe? And while not everyone knew who and what he was, it was fortunate that the right people did, and so took him at his word if he said a particular project would transform everything within a hundred mile radius into a toxic wasteland.

When he wasn't consulting, he was able to pursue his own projects. That was considerably harder to do with someone skulking around behind him.

He was in the midst of some very delicate rewiring, which involved microprocessors salvaged from three different spacecraft, a tangle of fiberoptic cable, and a laser soldering device, when an angry buzzing sounded from one side of the room. He looked up to find Adam had tried to open the door to the refrigeration unit, which required both a pass code and a swipe card for access.

"Lot of security for a mini bar," Adam said, with a sheepish smile.

"Wouldn't try any of samples in there," the Doctor said. "That's where we keep all the nasty ones. Unless of course you want to inhale a bit of caesofine gas–give your lungs a workout. Or maybe a dose of Retcon. Nothing like a good memory wipe to clear the slate."

Adam cleared his throat. "I'll pass." He strolled across the room and, much to the Doctor's annoyance, began peering at the pile of microprocessors and cables. "What are you making anyway?"

"A toaster," the Doctor replied without missing a beat.

Adam huffed. "I'm serious."

"And so am I," the Doctor replied. "I never make light of breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day!"

"I have high level clearance," Adam insisted.

The Doctor paused to adjust the glasses he'd slipped on for this delicate bit of work. "Ah but do you have high elevation mach three clearance?" He could hear Adam shifting around behind him.

"You just made that up. There's no such thing."

He completed another solder and reached for more fiberoptic cable, his brow furrowing as he realized he was going to need to connect another motherboard before he was done. "Is that so? Well I suppose I'll have to reread my Torchwood field manual." Drawing back, he inspected his work and then scouted around for the spare parts he needed. Adam circled around and leaned over the Doctor's workspace so that he had no choice but to stop and glance up at him, eyebrows raised.

"Maybe we got off on the wrong foot," Adam said. "I can be useful. I'm a specialist in computer systems. When I was eight I managed to hack into the Department of Defence. I nearly caused World War III."

"Funny," the Doctor said, "I've managed to _avert_ World War III on a few occasions."

Adam fell silent and for a moment the Doctor thought that perhaps he'd finally be able to work in peace. But then the young man crossed his arms and stared hard at the Doctor. "You know, I tried to look up your MIT doctoral thesis, but I couldn't find any record of it."

"It's classified," the Doctor replied, though of course the truth of the matter was that the thesis was as fictional as the rest of his official biography.

Throwing up his arms, Adam let out an exasperated sigh. "Is there anything about you that _isn't_ classified?"

"Yes actually." The Doctor smiled up at him. "I enjoy bananas, I believe suits are the height of fashion, and I am _not_ ginger." And then, when he found Adam was still standing there, "Don't you have some systems you need to interface with?"

"I suppose. Don't you have an energy consumption report to send?"

The Doctor continued soldering and did not look up. But as soon as he heard Adam's footsteps receding, he put down his tools and sat down at his computer. Better to stay on Goddard's good side or he'd be drowning in reports. He logged into the email (he had an email address now–an awful thought in and of itself) and attached the report (again), but before he could hit send, his screen blinked– just for a split second.

When it came back on, the screen was filled with text. Two words, all in caps, filling his screen.

BAD WOLF


	3. Two

**Two**

A breeze, cool and humid, tousled Rose's hair as she nibbled her chips. The day was overcast, but the weather had held so she and her mum had been able to sit at one of the pub's handful of outdoor tables squeezed onto the sidewalk. It was a lovely day and she usually enjoyed these lunch dates, but she was finding it hard to focus on the food or on talk of a charity dinner or even on Tony's latest toddler antics. Instead, she kept seeing the Doctor sitting on the sofa in the dark.

Most of the time she thought the Doctor was settling in to his new life, to his human life, but then she would catch something in his expression, like she had last night. A sort of discontent. And she could understand that–she felt it too. After seeing the universe, being part of history, it was hard to go back to the humdrum of everyday life, even if that life was punctuated with excitement thanks to their less-than-typical day jobs at Torchwood. But she worried, too, that it was more than that, that maybe this "adventure" of living life everyday wasn't, after all, really enough.

"You could have told me that he didn't like pears."

Rose snapped back to attention. "What?"

Having already polished off her plate, Jackie had been eyeing the dessert menu and now pointed to an item halfway down the list. "It's right here. Baked pears drizzled with caramel sauce. The same thing we served at that dinner party last week. You could've told me John would make such a fuss about them."

"You don't have to call him 'John' when it's just us two."

Jackie shrugged and looked back down at the menu again. "I suppose, but it's strange calling him the Doctor when he's settled down like he is now."

Fork in hand, Rose impaled one of the remaining chips on her plate and frowned at it. "It's not like he stops being the Doctor just because he stops travelling around." The breeze picked up, disarranging her hair again. She brushed it out of her eyes and looked up at her mum. "There was this one time when we thought we'd lost the TARDIS, we thought it'd been destroyed and that we were stuck on this–" She waved her hands vaguely. "This... space base."

"Stuck?" Rose groaned inwardly at her mum's outraged expression. "He almost got you trapped in space and you're only telling me this now?"

She supposed it was a good thing she'd left out the part about the black hole. "I'm here, aren't I? We weren't stuck. That don't matter. The point–"

"Oh there's a point now, is there?"

"The point," Rose continued, pitching her voice a smidgen louder, "is that if we had been stuck, the Doctor would still be the Doctor."

"All right, but that was still the other Doctor."

Rose glowered at her mum. "So are you going to start calling Tony's dad 'the Other Pete' or is it my dad who's the 'other' bloke now?"

A pained expression flashed over Jackie's features. "Oh Rose, it's not the same. I loved your dad. And Pete–"

"How's it not the same? The Doctors–both of them–they've got the same memories, right up the point that there were two of them. He's a part of the Doctor–the one that's all Time Lord–but as far as he remembers it, he _is_ the Doctor." She hated talking about it. She felt like every time she did, she cheapened it somehow, made him sound like some sort of consolation prize, when what she really wanted to say, what she really wanted to explain was that the Doctor had given her a piece of himself–his right hand technically, but really it was more like he had given her one of his hearts, like that was why he only had the one heart now. He had given that to her to keep. Forever.

"Hello, Jackie! Lovely to see you." Rose and Jackie both started at the cheerful greeting and looked up to find the Doctor striding towards them, a grin plastered all over his face. "Do you mind if I borrow your daughter for a bit?" Hovering over Rose's shoulder, he paused to duck down for a second, and, with that daft grin still on his face say, "Hello."

"Hello," she replied, her lips parting into what she was sure was an equally daft-looking smile.

Arms crossed, Jackie scowled up at the Doctor. "You couldn't wait until her lunch break was done?"

"'Fraid not."

"And you couldn't call?" Jackie said, miming a phone with her thumb and pinkie finger.

"No, needed to see her in person. Right now. So if you'll just excuse us..." He glanced at Rose, jerking his head and raising his eyebrows, beckoning her to come along.

"Right now?" Jackie repeated.

Rose stood.

"No time like the present," the Doctor quipped, taking Rose by the elbow. "Though 2049 is a good time too. Fabulous weather. But like I said, things to do. With Rose. Right now."

But Jackie wasn't done yet and Rose suppressed a groan. "If you're going to be carrying on at all hours you could at least let her finish eating first."

"_Mum_," Rose hissed.

The Doctor's brow crinkled. "Carrying on?" And then understanding washed over his features like a frothy breaker. "_Ooooh_. No, no, no. Not those sorts of... things. Official things. Top secret Torchwood official business things. Not..."

Rose turned to her mum and offered an apologetic smile. "I've got to get back to work, mum. There's probably an alien ship stranded in Cardiff or something like that. I'll call later."

Finally Jackie did let them go, albeit grudgingly, and the Doctor tugged Rose along with him, the humour melting out of him as soon as they were away from the pub.

"All right, let's have it," Rose said. "What was that about?"

"The breach between this world and ours was supposed to have sealed itself, but it hasn't. Something's coming through."

Rose's step faltered. She stared up at him. "What d'you mean? What's coming through?"

"You, Rose."

"What?"

Taking her by the shoulders, he spun her around to face an electronic billboard. It flashed to life, advertising a new line of perfume that offered "a taste of the wild." There were flashes of darkened woods and a racing lupine form. And then in big bold letters it spelled out the words, "Bad Wolf".

**ooo**

There was a tiny park not far from the office. They sat together on one of the benches, silent, surrounded by the city sounds, the drone of street traffic and zeppelins swallowing them.

"What does it mean?" Rose said.

The Doctor, one arm stretched along the length of the bench, didn't look at her as he spoke. "It means you're calling yourself back."

"But why, what for?"

"I don't know," he said, his face scrunching up in puzzlement. "When you looked into the Time Vortex you were able to see everything, even the gaps in the dimensional barrier. That's how we ended up with the likes of Darlig Ulv-Strande. Bad Wolf Bay. You saw it all."

"All?" Rose said, turning to look at him. "The two of us, sitting on this bench, right here, right now?"

"I'd say so," he replied, jutting his chin out. She followed the direction of his gaze, to the dustbin across the green. And there they were again, those words, in black spray paint. Bad Wolf.

He had donned a long coat in spite of the summer warmth and the hem of it flapped around his calves in the breeze. She'd taken him shopping when they'd gotten back to London. He'd happily picked out a series of pin-stripe suits and several pairs of Converse runners–two red pairs. She'd had to remind him that he also needed to get regular things like pajamas ("Or do you sleep in the buff?"), socks ("Yes, any colour you want."), and pants ("Boxers or briefs, take your pick, Doctor."). It had been a wonderful day. They'd alternately amused and exasperated the shop clerks with their bouts of laughter, and, at the end of the day, she'd taken him home and they'd squabbled about whose wardrobe took up the most space in the closet. And by the end of that he'd been less interested in trying on clothes and more interested in taking them off.

But right now, in this moment she had seen but could not recall seeing, he still wasn't looking at her.

"Doctor..." she began but didn't get the chance to get any further.

"Parallel worlds are supposed to be completely separate from one another. Landing here the first time should have been a fluke but it's as if it's... porous. It's full of holes and things keep coming through."

"Doctor," she said again.

"And why isn't there a Doctor in this world, hm? Why isn't there a Rose Tyler or a Donna Noble or a Sarah Jane Smith or a Martha Jones?"

"You... checked?"

He darted a glance at her and then fixed his gaze ahead once more. "I might have done a quick search." He held thumb and index finger a centimetre apart. "Just a little one." And then, his gaze becoming distant once more, "It's as if all the things that would draw the Doctor here never existed."

She leaned in close, raking her fingers through his hair. Finally, he glanced at her and she smiled. "I suppose there's only enough room on the planet for one Doctor."

His hand hovered for a moment over his chest. "Or half of one in any case." And then he sprang to his feet, offering her a hand and pulling her up next to him. "Enough of that. Time to be on our way."

"On our way?" Rose laughed. "Even if we can convince Goddard to let us get the dimensional transporters out of storage–and that right there's going to take some fancy talking–there's still the tiny problem of the way they work. You know, by punching a hole in the universe? I thought we were trying to avoid causing reality to collapse."

He flashed a grin, his face lighting up the way it always did when he was feeling especially pleased with himself. "But that's why I've got _this_," he said, pulling something out of his coat pocket. Rose's eyes narrowed as she beheld one of the familiar gray and yellow devices this world's version of Torchwood had created when trying to track down the Cybermen army. Except it wasn't. It had a pair of blue flashing lights on one side, and on the other, a rectangular projection with a tangle of cables poking out the back.

She raised her eyebrows. "And that is..."

He frowned at the device for a moment, turning it to and fro. "It doesn't actually have a name. Not yet. Would you like to have a go at naming it? We could call it Albert, I suppose, or maybe Christopher. "

Rose gave him a playful shove. "What does it _do_, Doctor?"

He tossed it in the air and caught it. "It hones in on causal nexus abnormalities and takes you to them. It only works if something else has already created a hole in the universe so no need to worry about collapsing reality."

This explanation she could follow, but what puzzled her was how he had accomplished this. The Torchwood techs had managed to refine the dimensional transporter's design, allowing the user to move through space so that you could leave from London in one world and end up in Leeds in the parallel world. But if you wanted to be in Leeds in 1981 then you were out of luck because the device only moved through space and not time. In an alternate reality, to help Donna travel back in time and make sure she met the Doctor, Rose and her team had had to use the dying TARDIS. But in this world, there was no TARDIS, dying or otherwise.

Sh reached out and the Doctor offered the device for for inspection. "You fused two devices together," she said, turning it over in her hands. "Is this a time vortex manipulator?"

"Mmm-hmm. I cannibalized some of the broken ones I found in storage."

"We had broken time vortex manipulators in storage?"

He shoved his hands in his pockets and gave a little shrug. "They weren't properly catalogued. I found them in a pile of altitude sensors and coordinate detectors."

The device felt warm in her hands as if it were a living thing. She licked her lips and then, trying to reign in her excitement, looked up at him. "So what you're saying is... we can travel through time?"

He broke out into a huge smile. "We can travel through time." And as she threw her arms around him, she was grinning just as broadly. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her into a tight hug. She had missed this–not the time travel exactly–but that giddiness that came when you stood at the brink of the unknown. And she had missed seeing it in him.

Before he let her go, she stole a quick kiss. "I can't believe you were working on this right under Goddard's nose."

"Well," he drawled, "it's no TARDIS, but if you've got to repair a hole in the universe it's quite handy to have." And then, reaching into his pocket, he extracted a second device. "One for you and one for me."

A zeppelin churned the air overhead and she glanced up. Even after several years spent in this world, they were still foreign to her, serving to remind her that this was not _her_ London, not the place she'd been born and raised. It still caused her problems on an almost daily basis. On Christmas she would make some comment about the Queen's Speech and be reminded that England hadn't had a monarch since the Second World War. She'd ask about a television programme or a film only to find that it had never been made here or that different actors had been cast. She was a foreigner here; she always would be.

Rose smiled up at the Doctor. "So, just push the big yellow button?"

"That's it," he said. "All set, then? There's no telling where we might end up." He held out his hand to her. She took it, interlacing her fingers with his.

"Just how I like it."

And then together, they pushed the big yellow buttons and vanished.


	4. Three

**Three**

"No telling where we might end up, yeah?" Rose said. "Funny, coz this looks a lot like London."

In fact it looked a good deal like the West End of London. Rose peered up and found a cloudy sky free of zeppelins. London, _her_ London.

Next to her, the Doctor was peering around, trying to get his bearings. They had appeared in an alley between two shops, which was just as well as it was the middle of the afternoon and shoppers were milling about with their purchases. Across from them, between two white-washed buildings, stood a narrow red brick edifice whose front window proclaimed it to be "White's Antique Market."

"_Ohhh_, I remember this place," the Doctor gave her hand a tug and they emerged onto the sidewalk. With a quick check for oncoming traffic, they crossed the narrow street and came to a halt in front of the antiques shop. Standing there, pointing at the store window, grinning like a madman, he was every bit the Doctor as she'd known him, and Rose was filled with a wild affection for him. He was wonderful, so brilliantly alive and full of wonder, and hers, he was _hers_, and she gripped his hand all the more tightly. "I came here with Martha."

And then her elation ebbed away. All that time she'd been trying to find her way to him, all the adventures she had missed, all that time and he had never stopped running. "What was so special about this place that you wanted to bring her here?"

He cocked his head. "It was more of a side trip really. Needed some supplies to deal with a... thing."

Rose raised an eyebrow. "A thing. Is that a bit of special Time Lord technical vocabulary?"

His face scrunched up the way it always did when he was being pinned down and didn't like it. "They don't have a proper name. They're a sort of non-sentient protein-based creature. The Rutan Host uses them sometimes for ground warfare–mixes and matches the DNA sequence depending on the planet's surface. This one came out looking lizard-ish. A big scaly lizard-ish thing."

"And you needed to stop and buy what? Some silverware? Some nice candlesticks maybe?"

"I needed something that could get in between the creature's scales and then I saw this place and it had a bow and a quiver full of arrows right in the store window. Perfect! Store owner even gave it to me for free for some reason," he added, his brow scrunched up in puzzlement.

"A bow and arrow," Rose repeated. "Like the one in the store window right now that that bloke is looking at?"

The Doctor's attention snapped back to the present, his gaze fixing on the shopfront. "No. No, not _like_ it. That's exactly it. The same one."

With long strides, the Doctor pushed open the door to the shop, and walked in, his demeanour instantly shifting from silly to serious.

Rose spoke in a low tone. "Did you bring it back to the shop after you were done?"

"No," he replied, his eyes sweeping the shop's front room. "It was snapped in two during the fight."

So they had arrived before the Doctor had first come here. That meant they had better not be here when he did arrive. If there was a guaranteed way to muck up the universe, crossing your own time line was it. But the bloke–a portly fellow with wire-rim glasses and a bad goatee–was still standing there, inspecting the quiver. And then, worse still, inspecting the price tag that dangled by a string off one of the arrows.

"Rose," the Doctor hissed, "do you have any money on you?"

"Oh sure," she said, pulling a fiver from her wallet and waving it before him. It bore the face of the first President of Great Britain. "Think they accept bank notes from the People's Republic of Britain here?"

"Ah. Right. Plan B then." He offered her his arm. She took it and with that they walked right up to the window display. The man was scratching at his goatee while frowning at the price tag. The Doctor smiled broadly. "Blimey, look at that, dear, it's turned up at the shop again."

The man glanced up. "Scuse me?"

The Doctor kept right on smiling. "The bow. It always ends up back here. Third time now, I think?" He glanced at Rose for confirmation.

"Fourth," she said, smiling just as widely like she was no more than a breezy and slightly daft Saturday afternoon shopper.

"Fourth," he repeated with a nod.

Frowning the man looked from the Doctor to Rose. "What are you on about?"

"It's the curse," the Doctor said cheerfully. "Latches on to whoever buys the bow. Or maybe it's quiver. Hard to tell," he said, brow furrowed. "They come as a set."

The man removed his glasses and began to polish them with the hem of his shirt. "And what curse is that?"

"The curse of the..."

"Jagrafess," Rose interjected when the Doctor hesitated.

He looked down at her, smiling adoringly, the very image of a besotted idiot. "Thank you, dear. I always have trouble with that. Keep wanting to say 'Jagrapest' for some odd reason." He shrugged. "Anyway, yes, curse of the Jagrafess. Awful stuff." He turned to Rose again. "Was it the second one who was hit by the piano or was that number three?"

"The second one," she said with a nod. "We never found out what happened to the third one." And then, holding her hand up near her mouth and whispering, "Shop keeper wouldn't say." She glanced meaningfully over her shoulder towards the counter. "Number four was... you know... with..." She gestured vaguely towards her face and the Doctor nodded very seriously.

"With the head. Yes, right." He grimaced. "Awful that."

The man wiped his brow and put his glasses back on. "You're not here to buy it then?"

The Doctor gave a hearty laugh. "No, not us. We're here for cufflinks. Very collectible, you know. Worth a fortune on the internet." And then, with a nod towards the bow, "Well then, enjoy!" He turned and led Rose away, but they'd taken no more than a step before they could hear the man hurrying towards the door, muttering something about "overpriced".

The Doctor leaned down to whisper in her ear. "Curse of the Jagrafess." He chuckled. "Rose Tyler, you are... fantastic." He paused for a moment and grimaced. "Still feels weird saying that with these teeth."

"How long before we need to be out of here? To avoid you meeting yourself, I mean."

"There's no hurry. I won't be showing up until–"

A boom, like thunder but more resonating, shuddered through the shop, causing the glass cases to tremble and the chandeliers above to tinkle.

"In about ten minutes then," the Doctor corrected himself. "Time to go."

They turned towards the door, but standing in their way was the shop owner, all two hundred centimetres of him, towering over the Doctor and Rose, arms crossed over a broad chest. "Are you planning on scaring away any more of my customers today?"

The Doctor scratched at the back of his neck, one of those self-conscious gestures peculiar to this Doctor and not the one she'd first met that night in the basement of her department store. "It was for his own good." His eyes were casting about, looking for a solution. Rose spotted it first. Scratch cards, scattered all over his counter. She recognised some of them–Cashword, Quick Cash, Money Spinner. Mickey had liked to pick one up sometimes. He'd even had a lucky halfpenny he'd used to scratch them.

Rose gave the shop owner her brightest smile. "Are you a betting man?"

"What?"

"Oh come on," the Doctor cajoled, catching on immediately, "you wouldn't say no to a little wager, would you?"

He uncrossed his arms. "Wager on what?"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "That the bow really is cursed, of course." The shop owner snorted. "Really," the Doctor said. "That bang we just heard. I am willing to wager the price of that bow that it was something really peculiar."

"Aliens, I'll bet," Rose supplied.

The Doctor nodded vigorously. "Aliens, yes. In fact I bet you some big ol' alien... thing... will show up right in front of this shop."

"Bollocks."

The Doctor glanced down at his watch and grimaced. "We actually have to be on our way. I have to meet a friend and do this thing..." He glanced down at his clothes. "And change my suit too–can't forget about that. But then I'll be right back. Say... in about five minutes," he said, voice tight as he inched towards the door with Rose.

"I'm sure you'll be back. You and the aliens." He turned away towards his counter. Letting out a breath, Rose hurried out of the store with the Doctor, back the way they'd come.

"What's going to happen in five minutes?" she asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "Nothing much. Just that that lizard thing I mentioned is going to tear down the street with me and Martha chasing it. And then I'm going to stop in there, get the bow for free, since I won our little wager, and then take a cab and get out in front of another little shop called 'Sparrow and Nightingale'".

They were tucked into the alley now, away from prying eyes–especially the Doctor's own. A strange, echoing bellow reverberated through the air, growing closer. The call of a protein-based lizard thing. The Doctor had pulled his dimensional transporter out of his pocket and was inspecting it.

"So let me get this straight," Rose said. "You were able to fight this lizard thing in the past because we came back from the future, through a hole in the universe, to make sure that other bloke didn't buy that bow. Have I got that?"

"Just about," he replied without looking up.

"So we're not changing the causal nexus; we're already part of it."

He was still peering at the device in his hand. "I don't understand. I was expecting to find the cause of the holes but there's nothing here that seems to be creating them."

The roaring was closer now, joined now by a chorus of honking horns and screams. Rose hazarded a glance down the street and spotted something slightly larger than a rhinoceros and very definitely reptilian, charging through traffic.

She turned to the Doctor, eyebrow raised. "This is what you got up to while I wasn't around?"

"_Nooo_," he said, drawing out the sound and making a face. "This was the exception. The rest of the time is was very dull. Absolute doldrums."

Rose laughed.

Another resounding roar shuddered through the air and the Doctor glanced toward the street and then back to Rose. "Time to go." He raised his eyebrows and, holding up the device, grinned at her. "_Allons-y_!"


	5. Four

**Four**

This time, when they materialized, Rose could not so easily identify their location. A white corridor, lined with painted red doors, stretched out ahead of them. The florescent lighting overhead suggested late twentieth or early twenty-first century, but there wasn't much to go on besides that.

Next to her, the Doctor was frowning at the white walls. "Well this is generic," he announced. "Familiar, though. I wonder if–"

He didn't get any further than that. A pair of soldiers appeared from around the corner at the end of the corridor, jogging towards them, weapons raised and pointed directly at her and the Doctor. Rose recognised their black uniforms and red berets. They were members of UNIT, the elite United Nations forces. Since the start of her residency with Torchwood she'd had to work with them on more than one occasion.

"This is a UNIT operation," the lead soldier shouted. "All personnel are ordered to surrender."

Her hands went up. So did the Doctor's.

"They don't look like facility employees," noted the second man.

"Hello," the Doctor said, putting on his best smile. "We're authorized personnel. No need to wave those things at us."

Rose darted a glance at the ID badges pinned to their right breast pockets. Privates Harris and Gray. No one she knew from the other world. No, of course not–that would have been far too lucky.

"Let me see some ID," Private Harris said.

Still smiling, the Doctor reached into his pocket and then, all at once, his face fell. "Oh." Rose glanced at him just as he looked to her. "I forgot. I haven't got the..."

The psychic paper. It was just the thing he'd normally use in a situation like this to fake the necessary credentials. But he no more had psychic paper than he had a TARDIS. He was just... human.

"What's that, sunshine?" Private Harris said. "No ID?" He leaned in and snatched the Doctor's own ID badge, which he was still wearing at his hip. "Doctor John Smith from the Torchwood Institute."

"She has one too," Private Gray said, glancing at her badge. "Rose Tyler. Torchwood Institute. Ever heard of it?"

"No." He reached for his radio. "Greyhound 15 to Trap One. We've located two unauthorized personnel. Repeat two unauthorized personnel. Request permission to bring them in."

A moment later, the radio crackled to life. "Negative, Greyhound fifteen. Secure your prisoners and proceed to your target. We'll send someone to pick them up."

"Yes, sir." Turning his attention back to the Doctor and Rose, Private Harris stepped aside and motioned before him. "After you."

**ooo**

And that was how she and the Doctor ended up locked up in the industrial equivalent of a broom closet. Instead of mops and buckets they were surrounded by hunks of industrial machine components, but it was still basically the same thing. Outside, the two privates were clattering their way down the hall, checking each door in turn, charged with securing the facility, she supposed. At present Rose was more concerned with the Doctor. Slumped on the floor, hands stuffed into his pockets, he looked about as dejected as she had ever seen him.

Rose sat down next to him, her shoulder pressed up against his. He didn't look at her when he finally spoke. "No psychic paper. No sonic screwdriver." He raked his fingers through the hair on the back of his head. "Slips my mind sometimes that I'm not the real thing. I'm like Betamax, or a tofu burger." His face scrunched up. "Non-fat ice cream. Are you feeling peckish at all?"

"You've had to do without the sonic screwdriver before. It's not what makes you you."

He glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. "No? Then what is?"

Rose considered him for a moment and then, with a curt nod, "The hair. Definitely the hair."

And when he cracked a smile, in spite of being locked in an industrial broom closet and having holes in the universe to contend with and not having a TARDIS to travel in, Rose felt truly and immensely content. She took his hand in hers and smiled at him.

Sitting up straighter now, he produced the dimensional transporter from his pocket. "Well, at least we still have these. We can transport out of here." They both looked up as a series of clangs and clatters rang through the corridor. The Doctor's air was incredulous. "Once they've recharged and Tweedledee and Tweedledum are on their way."

"Have you figured out where we are?"

"ATMOS factory," he replied matter-of-factly, as if that should explain everything.

ATMOS: Atmospheric Omission System. It was a filtering system for cars, designed to reduce carbon emissions to zero. Except that it had actually been part of a Sontaran stratagem to fill the atmosphere with clone feed (a gas that was, incidentally, toxic to humans) and convert the planet into a cloning world. While the events at the ATMOS factory had taken place after her time with the Doctor, she was familiar with it thanks to her travels across parallel worlds. When she had been trying to help Donna, she had seen the devastating effects of the ATMOS gas.

"So the Sontarans are here," she said.

He nodded. "Hiding in the basement."

Rose knew that her priority should be figuring out what they were up against and why they'd ended up here, but what popped out next had nothing to do with priorities. "You were travelling with Donna."

He shifted in place, his shoulder coming away from hers, leaving her feeling colder for the loss of it. "I was, but Martha was working with UNIT so we had a sort of... team."

"Yeah?" Rose, said in her best impression of nonchalant. "Teamwork's... good." They'd both been there and she hadn't. She'd been at Torchwood in the other world, punching holes in reality with the dimension cannon, trying to get back here, back to him. She felt him shift again and his arm came to rest across her shoulders, drawing her in.

"Teamwork is _very_ good." And as if he wished to prove his point, he leaned down and kissed her. Her eyes slid closed and she wrapped herself in the taste and the smell and the warmth of him, as familiar and comforting as a favourite sweater.

A resounding clang from the corridor startled them apart, but it was just Privates Gray and Harris banging around still. Rose sighed, wishing they would be on their way, and then turned to the Doctor. "These Sontarans, why do they need a whole planet for clones?"

"They reproduce through cloning. With the earth's atmosphere full of clone feed they'd be able to create billions of clones, billions of soldiers for their endless war against the Rutans."

"And they're fighting because..."

He huffed. "At this point? Because it's all that they are. They've been fighting for fifty-thousand years. Their entire cultures are built around the war. They won't stop until they wipe each other out."

"And do they manage it?"

The Doctor grimaced. "Not anytime soon. Sarah Jane and I ran into a Sontaran once in the eleventh millennia. They don't die off easily."

And yet, in the end, they would. Everything did. _Everything dies_. Rose shuddered, the fuzzy memory, sending a chill down her spine. Everything that had happened after she'd looked into the Time Vortex was a blur to her, but it was still there, still a part of her. She had been the Bad Wolf; two hundred thousand years from now, she _would be_ the Bad Wolf. It was her past and this world's future, and, in some strange way, it was happening _right now_.

_"Everything must come to dust_," Rose whispered.

The Doctor shifted around, staring at her. "What did you say?"

She shook herself. "Nothing. Just... I've been wanting to ask something."

"If it's what the weather's like in the eleventh millennia then I'm warning you, you're not going to like the answer."

"After I killed the Daleks, did you..." She took a breath, began again. "Back on Darlig Ulv-Strande, the Doctor–the other Doctor–he said that when you finished off the Daleks you'd committed genocide. But I did the same thing. Is that what you thought about me?"

"Rose." He said her name like it was a poem, a prayer. His fingers traced down her cheek. "Rose."

"Is it what you thought?"

"No. No, it was different. You couldn't control it. I pushed a button." And then, with a shrug, "Well... five buttons. And a lever." He straightened up, cupping a hand to his ear. "Do you hear that?"

She paused to listen. "Nothing. It's quiet."

"Exactly!" He sprang to his feet and then held out a hand to her and pulled her up. "Time to go–before we have any more UNIT company."

She retrieved her dimensional transporter and together they pressed the buttons.

They reappeared in the corridor, but Rose was momentarily disoriented. Several of the lights overhead were flickering and there was a noxious smell in the air, like car exhaust but sharper, enough to make her sinuses sting after only a few breaths. "What's happened?"

The Doctor was scowling at the device in his hand, turning it on its side and inspecting the wires. "The time vortex manipulator failed to disengage. We've jumped forward in time as well as through space."

"What's that smell?" Rose asked, her throat now beginning to feel scratchy as well.

"It's the ATMOS gas. Come on!" He grabbed her hand, heading for the stairs, and she broke into a run to keep up with him. "We need to get out of here before the Sontarans attack."

They paused at the top of the stairs, but the coast was clear and they emerged into a ground-level corridor. Several doors opened onto office space. Rose paused to dart into one of these and snatch up a pair of lab coats. "Might blend in a bit better this way," she said, pulling on the lab coat over her jacket.

He pulled off his overcoat to don the lab coat but the moment he had it on, Rose began to giggle. It had obviously belonged to a much broader man; on the Doctor's slim form it hung so loosely around his shoulders that he looked like a boy in his father's clothes. "Too big?" he said, sticking his arms out to reveal sleeves several times the width of his wrists.

"Just a smidge."

"Hmm." He pulled it off and this time pulled it on overtop of his long coat. It looked a bit peculiar but gave him some extra padding so that the lab coat's fit was less ridiculous. "Ah that's better. Now, we should be able to find an exit just around..." He took several long steps to peer around the corner of the hall. "Here."

The next corridor led out onto the factory floor. Sleek assembly lines stretched out as far as Rose could see, as well as stacks of boxes branded with a letter "A" that was made to resemble the triangular image of the universal recycling symbol. _A is for ATMOS..._

The clack of footsteps echoed hollowly through the two storey room. Rose and the Doctor ducked behind a stack of boxes. A brace of UNIT soldiers marched down one of the aisles at the far end of the factory floor, heading away from their hiding spot. After a few minutes, the Doctor nodded to her and they began creeping along the assembly lines, wary of any more patrols.

They had just reached the far end of the room when they heard the sound of weapons-fire.


	6. Five

**Five**

The Doctor pulled Rose down with him behind a stack of partially assembled ATMOS units seconds before a troop of Sontarans, clad in blue battle armour and helmets, marched across the warehouse floor. In their gloved hands they gripped the laser weapons that the Doctor knew would soon mow down the men and women of UNIT who'd been charged with holding the factory. But there was nothing he could do. They would not withdraw until Colonel Mace gave the order and that wouldn't happen until there were casualties. At this moment his past self was standing in the mobile UNIT headquarters shouting at the Colonel to evacuate his troops.

He darted a glance at the Sontarans. They were marching ahead toward the shipping area, where the bulk of the UNIT forces were stationed. "We need to reach the exit or we'll be sealed in here with the Sontarans."

They kept low, trailing behind the Sontarans. They were close enough to the outdoors that the air was growing hazy from the fumes when the Doctor saw the Sontarns raise their weapons and open fire. The long black barrels lit up red as they released their deadly beams. There was yelling and the whizz of lasers... but no gunfire. "Why don't they fire back?" Rose said, back pressed against a stack of boxes, horror plain on her features.

"The Sontarans are emitting a cordolane signal. It makes the copper in the bullets expand. Bullets jam in the barrel and the UNIT troops are rendered–"

"Defenceless."

"Yeah. Much like us," he added as a beam shot through the boxes just above their heads, causing them both to duck. He hazarded a look around, hoping for an opening. Not yet...

"Doctor."

He kept his eyes on the Sontarans. The UNIT troops were in full retreat, racing towards the exits and the hazy outdoors. The Sontarans gleefully shot them in the back.

"Doctor," Rose said more urgently, and then he felt a jerk as she tugged him forward, away from the boxes. "What is _that_?"

He followed her gaze. The shot that had narrowly missed them moments before had left a blackened hole in the ATMOS boxes. Out of it oozed a frothy green substance, dripping from the box and onto the floor where he'd been standing.

"What have we got here?" The Doctor crouched to inspect the hissing green pool at his feet. "Acid. It's coronic acid." He leaned down even further, peering at it intently. "But that shouldn't be there. It's not possible. Why–"

Rose grabbed his arm and gave him a shake. "We need to go. Now." There was more shouting but it seemed to be centred somewhere to their left. They finally had their opening.

He scambled to his feet and they raced toward the open doorway. A black-clad body thudded to the floor to their right and another ahead of them, rifles clattering across the concrete. They kept running. The warehouse door were sliding shut but they ducked under them and emerged into the outdoors... and the fog of poison fumes.

The surviving UNITS soldiers were retreating in the general direction of their mobile headquarters, obscured by the hovering cloud of noxious gas. Everyone was coughing: the soldiers, Rose–even the Doctor felt his chest starting to constrict, his throat, raw and scratchy. He shouldn't have been affected this quickly–he hadn't been last time–but his body just didn't have that Time Lord constitution he was so used to. Coughs beginning to wrack his chest, he grabbed Rose's hand and led her through the poison fog.

"There should be some outbuildings next to UNIT headquarters," he managed to choke out. Of course they couldn't go to the actual headquarters as that was exactly where he was/had been at this very moment. Crossing your own timeline was always dicey business.

They'd crossed half the ground when one of the few UNIT jeeps still in commission pulled up to them. The driver side window slid down a few centimetres and the soldier behind the wheel motion behind him. "Get in back."

"We can't," Rose said. And then, after another cough, "We need to get samples of the gas for–" Another cough. "For analysis."

The soldier nodded and then reached for something on the passenger seat. "In that case, take these," he said, opening his door to toss them each a gas mask.

"Thank you," the Doctor managed before he had to pause to cough again. The soldier nodded and sped off.

The Doctor and Rose each pulled on their gas masks and then, turning to look at each other, in unison, "Are you my mummy?"

And then together they began to laugh.

Oh he had missed her laughter, how easily it came to her even in the midst of chaos. "Come on," he said and took her hand, giving it an extra squeeze as they headed off on their way.

It was easier to think now that the air was no longer searing his lungs, and he managed to lead her to one of the ATMOS factory outbuildings, set between the main factory and the lot where UNIT had set up their headquarters. It was something akin to a garage for industrial equipment and, after a quick look around, they settled on a crate in front of an orange forklift. An acrid scent hovered in the air, but it was safe enough for them to remove their masks. Much easier to talk that way.

Perched on the crate, Rose's feet dangled high above the floor, but she crossed her legs at the ankle and shoved her hands into the lab coat's pocket as if there were nothing absurd or unusual about the situation. Completely unfazed. And he loved it.

"All right," Rose began, "so what's this about acid?"

"Coronic acid," he said. "Sontarans are especially vulnerable to it."

Rose frowned. "But they're using ATMOS for clone feed. Why would they add something that's dangerous to them?"

The Doctor raked his fingers through his hair. "They wouldn't. If it's been converted into gaseous form it would be catastrophic to the clone population. It would cause defects in the new clones to the tune of..." He paused a moment to perform some mental calculations. "Ten percent."

"Ten perfect would have defects? How is that catastrophic?"

"Ah," he said, glancing at her with raised eyebrows, "but it's ten percent of a clone population of roughly _six billion_." 'Billion' exploded from his lips liked a popped bubble. "All of a sudden they're stuck with six hundred million clones unfit for battle. It would be crippling." He cocked his head and darted a glance her way. "If you'll forgive the pun."

"But didn't you fix all this the first time around?"

He tugged at the collar of his lab coat, which was bunched at the back with a tag that was scratching at his neck. "I only compensated for the caesofine gas. That's the main component of the clone feed. I was able to modify an atmospheric converter to ignite it in the atmosphere, but the coronic acid wouldn't have been affected. It would have stayed in the atmosphere and come down as toxic rain."

Rose shifted on the crate, pulling one leg up and hugging her knee as she turned to face him. "But that didn't happen."

"No, it did not."

"Because we came back and fixed it?"

"But what's causing this?" he mumbled as he tugged at the too-wide sleeves of the lab coat. "The dimensional retroclosure should have been final but something has been causing these rifts to open up." This coat–it made him look like a child playing dress-up, like an imposter–like... tofu burger. His stomach rumbled and it occurred to him that he never really had stopped to have lunch before leaving Torchwood.

The sound of voices wafting in from outside brought him back to the present. One problem at a time, after all. He launched himself to his feet. "We need to get to the Rattigan Academy."

"The what?"

"It's a school for geniuses. Cozy place. Not a fan of the orange jumpsuits, though. They sort of scream 'inmate'."

Rose ignored this and instead was inspecting her dimensional transporter. "Should be finished charging in a few minutes," she said.

He grimaced. "Better not until I can make sure the time vortex manipulator doesn't activate again. If it did, we might arrive too late. We'll have to get there the old fashioned way."

"Yeah? You don't think walking will take a bit longer?"

"Not quite that old fashioned. Stay here. I know just the thing," he said, tugging on his gas mask.

When he returned, he was behind the wheel of taxi, the very one that he'd once commandeered to get here–back when he'd done this the first time around. With the gas mask covering her face, the Doctor couldn't see Rose's expression, but the way she crossed her arms and stared at the car suggested incredulity.

He pulled off his mask momentarily to grin at her. "Need a lift, miss?"

"You're serious?"

"Oh yes. _Allons-y_!"


	7. Six

**Six**

Rattigan Academy sat on a hill overlooking south London. As the Doctor drove the taxi up the main building, Rose stared out the window. The sight was unbelievable: London, engulfed in clouds too thick to be fog. She could just make out the Eye, rising above the city.

As soon as the taxi was parked, they dashed toward the main building, racing through its hallowed–or rather–hollowed halls, until they reached a laboratory. The Doctor clapped his hands together and began dashing around the room, collecting vials, beakers, and devices she couldn't put a name too. "I need to create a counter-agent for the coronic acid and code it into the atmospheric converter in a way that won't draw my attention when I come later," he explained.

"I'll go and keep watch then," she said, anxious to stay out of his way as he worked. He'd put on his glasses and was moving with that frantic intensity she remembered so well from their time together.

He glanced up. "Watch out for Luke Rattigan. He'll be skulking about somewhere. Don't let him shoot anyone. Including himself. We'll need him later to... save the day."

During her visit to the alternate universe that had created itself around Donna, she had learned some of the details of this incident, but not the particulars of how the Doctor had handled it. How exactly Luke Rattigan fit into it, she didn't really know.

She raised an eyebrow. "And what do I tell him when he asks why we're here?"

"Just say you need to use his lab to perform gravimetric analysis of some samples."

"And he'll know what that means?"

"Of course."

"Well good." And then, under her breath, "Because I certainly don't."

He was so absorbed now that he didn't even pause to reply, and she headed out into the hall, shutting the door behind her. It was strange to think that he was in there, but also out _there_ somewhere, back at the ATMOS factory. He was saving the world, just as he always did, with no notion that she was in this universe, shadowing him, part of a game of hide and seek between his past and his future.

She was startled from her reveries by the clack of footsteps echoing from an adjoining hallway. Though she had not met Luke Rattigan, Rose suspected that he did not wear heavy boots and march down corridors. As she crept closer, Rose could now hear raised voices, one, factual with clipped military tones, the other young and very shaky.

"Turn to face me, coward."

"Why are you here?"

Rose darted a glance around the corridor and her suspicions were confirmed for there, just a few feet away, stood the blue-clad shape of a Sontaran soldier, weapon aimed at the back a mousy boy that could only be Luke Rattigan.

"I have orders from General Stall to ensure that you don't cause any trouble, boy."

Luke spun around to face the Sontaran, a pistol gripped in his shaking hands. "I'll shoot!"

The Sontaran did not move. "Then do so. I do not fear death."

"I–I'm _not_ bluffing! I'll do it, I swear I'll do it."

"You tremble like a scout ship on solar winds." And with one quick motion the Sontaran batted the weapon out of Luke's hand. The pistol bounced off the wall and slid across the floor behind the Sontaran.

"But I _helped_ you. I'm an ally."

The Sontaran scoffed. "We need no allies. You are nothing but a pawn that has served its purpose."

Groaning inwardly, Rose began to creep closer. She supposed she had to keep Luke from getting shot as well as preventing him from shooting. It was just a few feet. She stepped lightly, eyes darting between the Sontaran soldier and the pistol.

"And now," the Sontaran continued, raising his weapon, "you will–"

"Behind you!" Luke shouted.

The Sontaran's shoulders shook with its laughter. "Do you take me for a yearling, boy? I–"

And that was as far as he got before Rose snatched up the pistol used the butt to strike him in the circular hole in the back of his armour–the probic vent; the Sontaran's one weakness. The Sontaran crumpled to the floor, his helmet coming loose as his head hit the wooden floor. Luke Rattigan stared in horror, first at the fallen soldier and then at Rose.

Rose glowered. "You were trying to tell him I was coming. Were you going to let him shoot me too?"

"I–no–I–who _are_ you?"

"I'm here to borrow your lab. To analyse the gas."

"That won't do any good. There's an entire fleet up there," he said motioning toward the ceiling.

Pistol still gripped in her hand, Rose raised her eyebrows. "Is that so? Well then I'd better work faster." She paused to remove the clip from the pistol and then handed the empty weapon back to him. "And you'd better be on your way."

He didn't argue this time, just skittered away. Rose sighed and headed back to the lab. "Doctor," she called. "We have a–" She cast a glance at the diminutive soldier crumpled on the floor. "_Little_ problem."

She led him to the other hallway where the Sontaran remained in a heap. The Doctor, still in a lab coat, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, crouched down next to him. "You clobbered him pretty soundly, didn't you? He's completely out. Still breathing, though." He rocked back on his heels for a moment before getting back to his feet. "We'd better get him back to the teleport. They must have unlocked the teleport pods to send him here and they'll be expecting him back. Don't want to keep the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet waiting, do we?"

Rose groaned, but, as the Doctor picked up one of the Sontaran's arms, she followed suit and grabbed the other and together they heaved him up. He weighed more than he looked like he should. Naturally.

Without his helmet, she could see the leathery tan skin of the Sontaran's oval head and his sunken eyes. She'd read the Torchwood files of course, but it was the first time she'd seen a Sontaran for herself. "You know," she said, as they staggered down the hall, "when I was little I had one of those toys–the Mr. Potato Head ones. At least I did before mum tossed him out."

Stumbling under the Sontaran's weight, the Doctor still managed to appear perplexed. "Why'd she do that?"

Rose's lips twitched. "He had an accident involving a washing machine." She paused for a moment and glanced at the Sontaran's face. "I don't feel so bad about it now."

They were grunting with effort by the time they reached the teleport and it was a great relief to be able to drop him on the floor of the device. "Won't they just send someone else in?" Rose asked as the Doctor punched buttons on the console.

"They should be otherwise occupied just about now." And then he hit a final button and stepped away from the machine. In a flash, the Sontaran was gone–and presumably back on his ship. Where he would shortly get blown up, so she supposed they weren't really doing him any favours. "Back to work now." He offered Rose his arm. "Would you care to act as my lovely assistant?"

Taking his arm, she gave him her most winning smile. "I'd love to, Doctor."

Back in the laboratory it was another matter entirely. He was once more in mad scientist mode, alternately tinkering with wires and stirring beakers set on Bunsen burners. The oversized lab coat completed the image perfectly and Rose was reminded of her secondary school chemistry teacher. She'd had a crush on him... until she'd actually had to take chemistry.

He held out a hand. "Pass me the potassium dichromate," he said, eyes fixed on a bubbling substance in the test tube in his other hand.

"The what?"

"The orange one."

After several more such exchanges and a fair bit of banging on the side panel of one of the contraptions, the Doctor broke out into a huge grin. "_There_. I've added the counter-agent to the coronic acid into the base setting for the atmospheric converter. I won't even know it's there."

"When you show up here. Any minute now," Rose said pointedly.

"Right. Yes. We should be going." He paused for a moment to strip off the lab coat, looking quite relieved to be rid of the thing, and then held up his dimensional transporter.

She moved to stand next to him. "Where to next, d'you think?"

"No idea," he said, and grinned. And together, they pushed the buttons.

This time when they materialized, Rose knew instantly where they were. It was somewhere she had never wanted to see again.


	8. Seven

**Seven**

Rose stared down the length of a corridor, its towering white walls lined with lights, its floors slate grey and shiny. And, at the end of the corridor a high blank wall. Like an empty canvas. Like a hungry black hole.

Her chest clenched. For a moment she couldn't breathe. Canary Wharf. Torchwood. This was where they'd first learned if its existence. And it had changed them forever. Rose dreamed of this place sometimes. It was where she had lost him.

Sometimes she dreamed that the breach between worlds was open and she was being sucked in again along with the Daleks and the Cybermen. Sometimes she dreamed that she was on the other side, trying to pull the Doctor through to her. And other times the wall was just a wall and she battered it with her fists, useless, helpless. Because you could not tear down the walls between worlds with your bare hands. No, for that you needed a cannon.

She gasped when she felt a hand clasp hers; for an instant she'd thought she was alone. She squeezed his fingers, and for a minute they remained there, together, staring at that blank white wall that had once stood between them. And then, as one, they turned to look at one another. The ache of that parting and the raw relief at his presence now were mirrored in his eyes, and all she could think to do was pull him down to her and kiss him, and try to erase all the distance that had ever been between them.

Rose kept a hold on him even after they parted. "Of all the places we coulda ended up, why'd it have to be here?"

He glanced around to the offices behind them. "Everything's quiet. Looks like the breach is sealed and I've already left."

Rose moved to the nearest window only to see smoke clouding the horizon. Below, people crowded into the now-empty streets. "Doesn't look like much time's passed though. Maybe just a few minutes." That made it worse somehow. That it had only just happened and she was there on the other side, her face blotchy from crying, her mum coaxing her along out of the that room. "Let's take a look around," she said, suddenly wanting nothing more than to be out of there.

He gave a nod and began skulking around the edges of the room as if checking for secret passages or–just as likely–a rift in the fabric of reality. Squashing the urge to cling to him like a little girl, Rose ducked into the nearest office and began rummaging around for anything useful or interesting. After several minutes she decided that unless packets of nicotine gum and post-it notes qualified as interesting, then there was nothing at all here. "You know," she said, leaning sideways to try to see all the way to the back of one of the desk drawers, "I miss the days when you could just scan for alien tech."

She waited for a reply–something along the lines of "Where's the fun in that?" or "We'll just have to do it the old-fashioned way," but nothing came.

"Doctor?" Rose called, glancing up to peer through the office's glass window. She couldn't see him. "Doctor?" She rose and moved back out in the main room, her breath catching in her throat when she discovered that he was nowhere to be seen. The room was completely still, with no echoes of footfalls or the rustle of his long coat. She was alone.

The white wall where the breach had once been, loomed at the far end the corridor. Goosebumps prickled Rose's skin when she realized what this place reminded her of. A mausoleum.

Deep breaths. She took deep, deep breaths, trying to calm her racing heartbeat. It was this place; it was turning her mind to a pile of quivering jelly. He couldn't have gotten far. The Doctor wouldn't leave her here–at least not if he had any choice in the matter.

"Doctor," Rose called again. This time she thought she discerned a muffled reply. A quick glance around the room revealed a door to the fire stairs. She heaved it open only to discover him crouched on the landing half a flight below. "You find something?" she asked, descending the stairs to join him.

"Not some_thing_." And as she reached him, she realized what he was crouched over was a body, black-clad, face covered by a gas mask, sprawled on the cement landing. He had dark hair but the face plate of his mask was cracked, obscuring his face.

"He's..."

The Doctor nodded. "Been dead for a few hours at least. Rigor mortis has already set it."

She crouched down next to him, her eyes flicking between the body and the look of concentration on the Doctor's face. "You figure the Cybermen got him?"

"Looks like it. Cause of death seems to be electrocution." He sat back on his haunches, his eyes scanning the body. "You know, though... he looks like one of yours."

"One of my what?"

"One of your Torchwood team. Did Pete lose anyone from the merry band he brought along to help seal the breach?"

Rose shook her head. "No, I'd know about that. Everyone came back." She gave the body another quick once over. "He's not wearing a dimensional transporter either."

"Well," the Doctor began slowly, reaching to remove the gas mask, "let's have a look at you."

The face beneath was that of a young man, no more than Rose's age, with a square jaw covered in stubble that looked startlingly black against the sickly hue of his skin. His left cheek was smudged with blood that had oozed from a gash on his cheek, but which had long since dried. Rose's jaw dropped. "I know him."

The Doctor glanced at her. "So he was part of Pete's team?"

Her fingers were clutching at the fabric of the Doctor's coat but her eyes were fixed on the pallid face. "No, I mean I _know_ him. I met him when I first joined Torchwood. His name's Thomas Roberts."

Brow furrowed, the Doctor scanned the man's face. "This could be the version of Thomas from this world."

Rose shook her head and pointed to his bloodied cheek. "Yeah but you see that? When I met him he had the same cut. It was still healing; he'd just had the stitches taken out. He said he'd had a run-in with a Cyberman during the mission. He wasn't allowed back on field duty for over a year on account of his being sort of... off."

"Off?"

Rose shrugged. "Post-concussion syndrome, they said."

The Doctor's frown had turned into a full-blown scowl and he stared down at the body. "And where is Thomas now?"

Her stomach had bunched itself into a tight wad of knots already, but, licking her lips, she told him. "He went MIA just before you started at Torchwood."

The Doctor's head snapped up. "What was the mission?"

A handful of vague images flashed through her thoughts like the fragments of a dream in the moments after the alarm rang in the morning. Something about another country and a missing team. She shook her head. "I don't know. I might have heard something about it but..." She shrugged.

The Doctor sprang to his feet. "We need to go back."

Rose got to her feet, dread firmly settled in her stomach. "This is the real Thomas, isn't it? The one I met... he wasn't human."

"No, very likely not."

Taking a deep breath, Rose considered the implications of this, of the idea of an alien that had stolen a dimensional transporter, impersonated a member of Torchwood and, in doing so, gained access to all of its information and equipment. She darted a glance at the body and sighed. "At least it's not the Slitheen since he still has his skin. Don't suppose that narrows it down much?"

Hands stuffed in his pockets, he shook his head. "There are plenty of others ways to impersonate someone–body-print technology, morphic illusion, image translator, perception filters. All sorts of gizmos and doodads for that."

"All right," Rose said with a nod. "Let's go home."

The Doctor began fiddling with his dimensional transporter. "That should do it."

She raised an eyebrow. "It's going to return us... what? Twelve minutes after we left, right? Not twelve months?"

His face scrunched up and, lips pursed, he reached into his coat for his glasses. "Let me just... double check the settings." When he was certain that they would return before anyone had the chance to declare them missing persons, he gave a nod and grinned at her. "All fixed."

He held out his hand. She interlaced her fingers with his and squeezed them. And then for the fourth time that day, they pressed the big yellow buttons.


	9. Eight

**Eight**

Even before a shadow fell over them and the Doctor looked up to see the massive oval form of a zeppelin passing overhead, he knew they were back in Pete's world (as he still liked to call it, particularly in the presence of Pete himself). The very fabric of this world had a different feel to it, as if the chronon particles here vibrated at an infinitesimally higher frequency. They were back where they had started, in the park near Torchwood headquarters.

Rose had pulled out her mobile. She smiled and, with evident relief, said, "It's only been an hour." And then, after a moment, "But I still got three messages from mum."

He watched her as she fiddled with the phone. She looked so very alive, almost glowing. And why not? Being stuck on earth, like a human, like a normal person, that was rubbish. Of course Rose wanted more than that. She had crossed through parallel worlds to find the Doctor, the man who was always on the move, not a man who was always standing still.

Staring at the phone screen, she shook her head and finally stuffed the mobile back into her pocket. "So where do we start?"

"Hmm? Oh, you mean looking for our spy?" He paused a moment, hands in his coat pockets, to run through a few scenarios in his mind. "I can do a search on the Torchwood records for Thomas Roberts, but if he knows what he's doing then he'll have left a tracking algorithm in the system to alert him if anyone accesses his information."

"But you can work around that, yeah?"

"Course. Just need to make it look like broad system sweep."

Rose nodded. "I can ask around. I'll make sure to keep it general. Not much time, though. The gala's at seven and we have to get back home to change and all that."

The Doctor grimaced. "I'd forgotten about the gala. I'm not sure it's a good idea. Remember what happened the last time we showed up at a party that the President was invited to? It's something about the suit, I think." He frowned and rocked back on his heels, considering this for a moment. "Maybe the bow tie. Something about wearing one just makes things..." He shrugged. "Go wrong."

"You know the good thing about wearing that suit?" Rose said, leaning into him.

"What's that?"

Standing on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear, one of her hands snaked around the back of his neck, sending a shiver down his spine. "Taking it off."

She drew back, a sly smile on her lips. The Doctor cleared his throat as he moved to follow after her. "Yes," he croaked, his voice a smidgen higher than his normal register. "Yes, that part is _very_ good."

**ooo**

"How can there be nothing?" Rose said in hushed tones as they climbed the stairs to the Memorial Gallery of Contemporary Art. The building was part of the wave of construction following the Cybermen war, and as a gallery to commemorate those lost in the war, it had been designed to be very posh and very modern–which apparently translated into a great deal of curved metal and glass. Their footfalls clanged on the steel steps, calling to mind the sound of Cybermen on the march. Shuddering, Rose wondered if that had been the intent, and clung all the more tightly to the Doctor's arm.

"It's all been rewritten," the Doctor replied. "Everything left is just general information. Useless. Completely useless." A few steps from the top, he paused and fidgeted with his bow tie.

She swatted his hand away. "You're going to make it crooked."

He grimaced. "It's on too tight." He rolled his shoulders. "And I don't think the jacket fits right. The one on the TARDIS was tailored by Christian Dior no less. Of course it seemed to be jinxed but..."

Her dress had certainly not been made by Christian Dior, but neither was it off-the-rack. She was an heiress now, as her mum liked to remind her, so there were appearances to keep up. The gala called for a black and white theme so she sported a flowing black gown with white trim. And since she was also wearing a pair of shiny black heels, she really hoped that, just this once, no running for their lives would be required.

"Did you find anything?" he asked as they resumed their clanging march up the stairs.

"Not a thing. It was weird actually. Everyone I talked to remembered Thomas, but it was like... they didn't remember anything specific. He was a nice guy, had to go on medical leave for a while, and then went MIA on some special hush hush mission with UNIT. Everyone said the same thing, but they couldn't remember anything specific, like who he was friends with or whether he had any family."

The Doctor was frowning now in that very particular way of his when he did _not_ like what he was hearing. "It's as if everyone's memories have been tampered with the same way the data files were." Their feet gave a final, decisive clang as they reached the final step, like a line of Cybermen coming to a sudden halt. Rose knew she would carry the sound of those footsteps to the end of her days.

The entrance was barricaded by elite security forces, but it took only a few moments for them to confirm that not only were Rose and the Doctor on the guest list, they were also part of the Torchwood security detail. Standard Scotland Yard forces were all well and good against standard enemies of the state... but not so much against those of alien origin. Torchwood on the other hand was better equipped to detect–and deal with–those.

No sooner had the Doctor and Rose passed the security checkpoint than Goddard pounced on them. "You took your sweet time getting here."

"Did we miss the entrées?" The Doctor asked, all innocence, and Rose had to bite her lip to keep herself from grinning outright.

"Do you need us for something?" Rose asked.

"Not me. The President. She's specifically requested a chance to speak to you two. After the hors d'oeuvres and before the speech."

"The President takes meetings during cocktail parties?" Rose said, eyebrows raised.

Goddard huffed. "This whole thing is nothing but a cover for a series of informal meetings. I want you both to impress her, do you understand? Because if my budget get slashed in the next quarter, I'll be looking at you two."

The Doctor offered her a broad smile. "Oh don't worry about that. Harriet Jones and I are old chums. Comrades in arms. Well not this Harriet Jones, of course but..." He paused, considering, and Rose shot him a reproving look before he could mention the fact that he had deposed the other Harriet Jones.

"It'll be fine," Rose assured. And then, with a mock salute, "Ma'am!"

Goddard snorted, her arms crossed over her chest. "If you weren't my best agent, Tyler, I would bust your ass for insubordination."

"Yes, Ma'am," Rose said, grinning. The Doctor offered Goddard a cheeky little wave as they wandered beneath the dome of the gallery's great hall.

Craning her neck to peer at the high ceiling, Rose decided that the building was even worse from the inside. Overhead, metal arches were built into the ceiling, set at the same angle as a Cyberman's helmet. A floor of pink marble veined with grey put her in mind of the brain inside of those helmets. Rose shuddered. It was like being _inside_ of a Cyberman. A passing waiter paused in front of them offering a tray of caviar and lobster cakes. "No thanks," Rose said, and, as soon as he was out of earshot, "I think I've lost my appetite."

The decor around the hall wasn't much more inspiring. In one corner she spotted a collection of metal chairs, all empty and a few knocked over. The section was roped off and was flanked by an information panel so it seemed to be an exhibit. To one side there was a sculpture made of a human figure inside of a translucent glass casing shaped like a Cyberman. And then, behind the raised metallic platform set up for the evening, a series of metal pipes had been welded together to form what looked like a skeletal version of a Cyberman. No matter where Rose looked, her eyes caught on something that made her skin crawl.

"Not exactly the Sistine Chapel, is it?" the Doctor said, looking little more pleased than she felt. He glanced towards something at the far end of the hall. She followed his gaze to a rectangular table at the head of which sat the President of the People's Republic of Britain. Several men in dinner jackets were seated along its sides, and every one of them was turned towards her, attention rapt, heads nodding. It was almost as if she were holding court.

"There should be some officers from UNIT here," Rose said, scanning the guests for anyone familiar. "We might be able to find out something about Thomas from one of them."

"A bit of reconnaissance then." He raised his eyebrows, grinning as he straightened his bow tie again. "It's like we're agents for a clandestine organization. Oh but I suppose we are now, aren't we?"

"Well it was that or go back to work in the shop."

"I'm rubbish in shops. Can never keep track of what's in this season." He shrugged. "On with the schmoozing."

**ooo**

It was with immense relief that Rose spotted Gwen Cooper to one side of the room. She'd spent the past half hour with the building's architect. He'd had quite a lot to say about his grand vision for the gallery and how it was a physical manifestation of his fathomless sorrow for the losses during the Cyberman war. Her only comment had been something along the lines of "Yeah, it's... different," which, unfortunately, had only encouraged him to go into greater detail.

Gwen smiled as she spotted Rose. She tilted her head in the direction of the architect, who'd found a new audience. "Did you make a new friend?"

Rose groaned. "I swear if I hear one more word about ceiling arches I'm gonna shoot someone."

"Want to borrow my piece?" As part of the security detail, Gwen was sporting dark trousers and jacket, as well as sidearm and an earpiece. Even as she talked to Rose, her eyes flicked over the crowd, scanning for threats. "It'd be a shame if all that time we spent at the firing range went to waste. You're getting rusty since the Doctor signed up."

What could she say to that? It was true that when she'd joined Torchwood she'd done all the training expected of a field agent. That meant familiarising herself with a range of firearms, including any number of alien disruptors, blasters, and explosive devices, things she knew the Doctor wouldn't have approved of. It was part of the training. And to be honest, when she had been going in to fight an army of Daleks, she'd been glad to have a giant Dalek-blasting gun. But even if she was a whole universe away from him, she wasn't about to do things the Torchwood way. She'd rather ask questions first and shoot later.

"I've been meaning to ask," Rose began, deciding it would be best to get it over with, "d'you remember Thomas Roberts?"

For a second, Gwen's face went blank. Then she gave herself a shake and nodded. "Yeah. I mean sort of. You see, I didn't really know him well."

The orchestra was playing a Sinatra tune, and the notes wafted through the gallery, sounding oddly hollow, Rose thought, as if they were echoing through an empty Cyberman shell. A shiver ran down her spine and she rubbed at the gooseflesh stippling her arms. When she thought that someone she knew at Torchwood, someone she worked with ever day could be little more than a shell, a husk controlled by a hostile alien... It could be anyone. It could be Goddard... It could be Gwen.

Giving herself a shake, Rose cleared her throat and tried to focus. Paranoia was not going to help her figure this out. "Me neither. I was just wondering if he had any friends or family or something like that."

"You know who you could ask..." Gwen's gaze swept the crowd and then fixed on a cluster of guests nearby. Rose spotted Adam Mitchell in group the moment later when Gwen waved him over.

"Need something?" he asked as he approached them. He glanced at Rose. "I didn't know you got roped into this too. Are you on security detail?"

She smiled. "Just the usual–mix and mingle and scan for alien tech."

"Just wondering," Gwen began, "d'you remember Roberts?"

Adam frowned. He glanced quickly from Gwen to Rose. "Roberts?"

"Thomas Roberts," Rose said. "He went MIA a while back."

"No," Adam replied with a shake of head. "I didn't know him."

Gwen tilted her head, her brow crinkling for a moment. "Didn't you train with him at UNIT?"

Adam shrugged. "I think he signed up earlier than me. I never ran into him."

Rose suppressed a sigh. Another dead end. It was just the same thing that everyone had said when she'd asked around at the office that afternoon. Generalities. Vague recall. But nothing specific. It was as if Thomas Roberts had been white washed from the collective memory of Torchwood.

She was about to mentally write off the entire night, when the first notes of an oh-so-familiar swing number made her heart skitter with joy. It opened with saxophones and trombones, and set a smile spreading instantly across her face.

"You're happy all of a sudden," Gwen noted, looking curious.

Rose knew she had to find the Doctor. "I have to go. Someone owes me a dance," she said with a wink before hurrying away.

"In the Mood," was the name of the song; she had looked it up once, ages ago, when she'd found herself daydreaming about that dance they'd shared in the TARDIS. She smiled now thinking of it, and when she found the Doctor and touched his arm, she almost expected to see the face she'd first known him with, big-eared and distinctly northern-accented.

"Sorry," she said, apologising to the two men he'd been talking to. "I need to steal my boyfriend away for a dance. This is our song."

The smile on his face was positively giddy as he took her proffered hand and followed her out onto the floor. A handful of couples danced a little awkwardly around them, and Rose was momentarily concerned that he might have forgotten how to dance–again. But as soon as he put his arm around her waist, he was in step, moving to the quick notes of the trumpets and trombones. They were dancing.

They stepped and swung, and she laughed as he twirled her around. Different face, narrower shoulders, softer hands, but the same daft old grin, still her wonderful, amazing, impossible Doctor.

As the music came to a crescendo, he waggled his eyebrows in warning and then dipped her. She laughed and, as he pulled her back up, she fell into his arms, still laughing. This was how it should always be. The two of them, dancing and laughing, his eyes bright with happiness when he looked down into her face.

"Did I already mention tonight that you look beautiful?" he asked, his eyes fixed on hers.

She felt a little flushed, from his words, just as much as from the dancing. "No," she said emphatically, "you did not."

"Really? I was sure I had." The band had begun to play again, a waltz this time so that everyone could catch their breath. He took her hand again and they began to sway slowly in time to the music. He leaned in close so that she could feel his breath against her ear. "Did I at least mention that I love you?"

He always whispered it, as if it were a secret he was telling her, one that he dared not share with the universe lest it object or interfere. As the universe did tend to do.

Rose beamed up at him. "You can mention that as often as you like."

She never got tired of hearing that. Just as she never got tired of being close to him. She'd have travelled with him forever if she could have, but if staying here in this world meant staying here with him, for all their days, then she would do that just as well.

"Lovely party," he said, his smile still wide. "Nothing's exploded yet. No hostile aliens have invaded. It's one of the best so far."

"It's still early. Who were you talking to before?"

"Just a couple of physicists. I gave them some pointers on string theory. Should help them sort it out. Now about this 'boyfriend' thing." His brow furrowed. "It sounds so... prosaic. I'm sure there's something better we could use."

"Should I tell people your 'mah fellah'?" she asked with her best imitation of a very pronounced American accent.

He tilted his head for a moment as they continued to waltz to and fro, always keeping time with the band. "How about paramour? More dramatic." He looked up then, his gaze travelling across the room towards the President. "Looks like we're up."

As they left dance floor and wound their way through clusters of champagne-sipping guests, Rose had to remind herself that this was not the Harriet Jones she knew, not the one she'd faced the Slytheen with and the Sycorax, the one who'd given her life to thwart the Daleks. Yet even knowing this, Rose still felt a bit stunned when The President turned to face them and, with a curt nod, announced, "Harriet Jones, President."

Somehow, Rose managed not laugh. "We know who you are."

The Doctor's smile was warm and very broad. "It's lovely to see you alive." His brow crinkled. "No, that's not right. In person. It's lovely to see you in person."

Apparently forewarned of the Doctor's notable eccentricity, Harriet remained unfazed. She gave a nod to her entourage and they drifted some distance away, leaving the three of them to speak freely. "Miss Tyler, I've been following your work. I believe you were chiefly responsible for the first contact proceedings with the Draconians?"

Rose ducked her head. "That was me. Thought it was all classified, though."

Harriet nodded. "They do like to keep Torchwood matters locked up, but I've made a point of staying informed. Earth isn't as isolated as we once believed it to be and we must be able to protect ourselves."

The Doctor, whose features had contorted into a pained grimace during her speech, rocked back on his heels, hands in his pockets. "Oh yes, protecting ourselves. That's usually what they claim when they start building very big guns."

This earned only a raised eyebrow from Harriet. "I've been looking forward to meeting you, Doctor Smith."

"Oh just 'Doctor' is fine."

"I was told that you'd been placed in the Research and Development branch. I take it advanced armament isn't your chief area of interest at Torchwood?"

"Nope. I just... tinker really. Odds and ends. I'm actually more of a consultant. Alien species expert."

"Being an alien yourself, Doctor. I must admit, I expected you to look... Oh I don't know... Different"

He shrugged. "Well I did used to have two hearts, but I'm mostly human now. Just your run-of-the-mill, regular human being."

"'Cept for the Time Lord brain and nine hundred years' worth of experiences," Rose added, wryly.

"I've heard your story," Harriet said, glancing from Rose to the Doctor, "That the two of you came from another world and that you used to travel through space. It's quite a lot to imagine."

"Of course we didn't travel just like this," the Doctor said, spreading his arms. "We had the TARDIS, my–" He broke off for a moment, tugging at his bow tie and Rose caught the forlorn look that flashed over his features. "The ship we travelled in, it was called the TARDIS." She inched closer to him so that her arm was pressed against his. He didn't look at her.

Harriet nodded. "The Doctor and Rose Tyler in the TARDIS. I see."

Rose's breath caught. A strange feeling of familiarity washed over her, like when in the middle of the day something made you remember the fragment of a dream from the night before.

"Are you all right, Miss Tyler?"

"Yeah," Rose said, straightening and offering an apologetic smile. "Sorry. Just had some sort of deja vu."

Overhead, the bright spotlights illuminating the room dimmed and then flickered and Rose's deja vu was forgotten as quickly as it had come.

Harriet Jones sighed. "A hundred and twenty-five million pounds this place cost and they still haven't got the electric sorted out." One of aides appeared at her elbow and leaned in to whisper something. She nodded. "It appears it's time to make my speech for the night. If you'll excuse me Doctor, Miss Tyler."

Knots of guests parted around the President as she made her way towards the glittering silver platform nearby. Rose let out a sigh of relief, as the tension she hadn't even been aware of until now, eased out of her. "That's done with anyway."

"Yup," the Doctor agreed. "The rest of the night's all ours." And then, with a shrug as the lights flickered again, "Provided nothing explodes."

The chatter of music of a few moments before ebbed to nothing as the President ascended the platform steps and took her place behind the podium. A few none-too-subtle Scotland Yard officials were posted at the edge of the platform as well as Jake and Goddard who stood at the front corners, each with a tissue scanner in hand. Looming over the platform, the steel rods of the skeletal Cyberman's outreached arm, glinted dully as the lights flickered for a third time.

"Good evening to you all," The President began, and from there easily launched into a speech about the tragedy of the Cybermen attacks and the importance of places like this one that acted as both a memorial to the fallen and a reminder of human ingenuity and imagination. But Rose found herself tuning out the words as, instead, her attention focussed on the sculpture leaning over the platform. She thought she caught the merest flicker on the steel rods. A reflection maybe.

But no, there, again. A lick of blue light like the spark of static.

"Doctor," Rose hissed.

But the Doctor's eyes were wide and fixed on the sculpture. And then he shot off, dashing towards the platform.

This time it was more than a flicker. A blue light crackled around the metal arm. The President broke off, looking above in time to a seething mass of sparking blue electric current come coursing down the arm of the sculpture, towards the platform on which she was standing... The very shiny, and very conductive metallic platform.


	10. Nine

**Nine**

Crackling electric current leaped along the steel rods of the sculpture like a seething nest of snakes, and Rose knew it was too late for the President to move away. But the Doctor was there, something flying out of his hand. It slid across the platform floor just as the electricity arced down the arm of the sculpture in a writhing blue bolt.

But instead of shooting straight down into the metal floor of the platform, the bolt zigzagged through the air and towards the device the Doctor had thrown.

Through the stunned silence that followed, Rose was already on the move.

The Doctor meanwhile hopped up onto the platform. "You all right, Madame President?"

"Yes. Thank you," she managed though her gazed was fixed on the small grey device on the floor as sparks shot out of it along with a wispy tendrils of smoke. "Now what precisely just happened?"

"Oh nothing much," the Doctor replied with a grin. "Just saved your life from some sort of massive bio-electrical feedback." He waved his hand above the device to clear the smoke and then reached for it. It spat a cluster of angry sparks and he jerked his hand back. "Ooh," he said and sucked on a singed finger. "Dimensional transporter. I switched the power cell to charge mode so it absorbed the electricity. Looks like it's overloaded the circuits, though."

"I see," Harriet said, while appearing entirely puzzled. Her security detail was already moving in and Rose had to flash her Torchwood credentials before they would let her onto the platform where the Doctor was just reaching out for the dimensional transporter again. This time there were no sparks. Instead, his fingers brushed the surface of the device and a flash of light enveloped him. And he was gone.

"Doctor!" Rose called even as she stumbled up the platform steps in her high heels. The flash was burned into her corneas, a white afterimage. Blinking furiously to try to clear her vision, it took Rose a moment to realize that while the Doctor was gone, the dimensional transporter was still resting on the platform floor. She stopped dead and stared at it.

Behind her, she could hear questions, someone–Harriet Jones or maybe Goddard–asking what had just happened. But all Rose could think was that the Doctor–the Doctor whom she had looked into the TARDIS's heart to save, crossed dimensions to find again, who'd stood on the beach, half-human, and offered her his life, her Doctor–was stranded out there. Somewhere. All alone.

Kneeling, she reached under the hem of her dress and tried to remove her own dimensional transporter, which was strapped to her leg, just above her knee. Dinner jackets had pockets. Dresses did not. She hoped she wasn't giving the onlookers too much of a show as she fumbled with the straps with fingers that trembled in spite of herself. Biting her lip, she concentrated on releasing the plastic snaps that held the straps together. Why couldn't it have been velcro?

Muttering several choice curses, Rose finally managed to release the straps and free the device. She didn't stop to explain as she shot to her feet and pressed the big yellow button. "I'm coming, Doctor."

**ooo**

Rose did not register her surroundings. All she could see was the Doctor, his unlikely hair ruffled, his hands stuffed into his dinner jacket's pockets, his gaze fixed upwards at the sky.

Relief surged through her. "Doctor!" she called, racing towards him. He turned, his face lighting up as he saw her. She ran into his open arms and hugged him fiercely, relieved to feel the warmth of him against her, and the thrum of his single human heart. "Were you waiting long?" she asked, face buried in his neck.

"Just a few minutes. The energy overflow from the transporter's battery expanded the dimensional vortex. Nasty little surprise, but I figured you'd come and fetch me home."

She drew back to look at him, holding his face in her hands. "I always do."

A little crinkle appeared above the bridge of his nose. "You managed to get your dimensional transporter from the leg holster?"

"I did, but I'll be lucky if the President and half of London society didn't get a look at my knickers while I was at it."

The Doctor's arms tightened around her waist. "I'm fairly certain I'm the only one who should get to see those."

"You'll get to see a lot more than that if we ever get home," Rose said and winked.

The Doctor heaved a dramatic sigh. "It'll be at least half an hour before that happens. I should've worked on reducing the transporter's charge time."

Rose nodded and took hold of his hand as they drew apart. "Right then. So where are–" And then she looked up at the sky. "Oh."

Instead of the blotchy grey-black dome of a London night, the sky was alight with gaseous swirls or purple and green. Suspended in the cascades of colour, several huge orbs loomed overhead. "Oh my God," Rose whispered. "We're..."

"In the Medusa Cascade." He nodded vaguely as he stared up at the sky.

Rose's stomach lurched. The last time she had stood under that sky she had seen the Doctor struck down by a Dalek. This time she did not have a huge gun and he didn't have any spare regenerations to use up. "We shouldn't stay in the open," she said, tugging him along. "The Daleks–"

"They've been and gone," the Doctor said, nonchalant as ever. "But there's something else here. "I can taste it!" He popped his index finger into his mouth and then held it up as if trying to check the direction of the wind.

Rose sighed and, casting him a sideways glance, "Why don't we ever go anywhere nice anymore?"

The Doctor shrugged. "That's the problem with using someone else's holes in the fabric of reality. It's sort of like hitchhiking really–you're likely to end up somewhere a bit dodgy." He began pacing, looking this way and that even though there was nothing in the street around them but still buildings and abandoned cars, running his fingers through his already mussed hair.

Sighing, Rose hopped up onto the bonnet of the nearest car. When he was in this mood it was safer to stay out of his direct path or you were likely to get bowled over. "So the bloke–or alien or whatever–who's been impersonating Thomas... He came from our world, killed Thomas at Canary Wharf, stole his dimensional transporter and crossed over to the parallel world, and started working at Torchwood. But why?"

The Doctor had gone from pacing to circling, round and round a sewer grate like a bit of flotsam caught in a whirlpool. "Could be for survival. The Cybermen were attacking and then Daleks too. It probably looked like the end of the world. And then he got stranded in Pete's world... just like you."

Her chest clenched. Pressing her lips together she stared up at the alien sky and forced herself to take a long, deep breath. "I spent two years trying to get back here." Trying to find him. Her work on the project had bordered on obsession–she'd known that... and hadn't cared. Her mum had worried and nagged as she always did. She'd told Rose that the Doctor had wanted her to be safe, to be happy, that she shouldn't waste her life chasing after a ghost. But how could she give up when there was a chance, even an impossibly slight chance, that she could find her way back? Perhaps the Doctor had given up hope because he was an all-knowing all-seeing Time Lord and was certain it was impossible, but she was just human, after all, and humans always flew in the face of what was impossible.

He paused and turned to face her, a toothy grin on his face. "Just to find little old me," he said as he straightened and adjusted his jacket lapels and his bow tie.

She laughed. "Shut up." He looked far too pleased with himself, preening like a peacock there in front of her.

Rose held out a hand to him and he took it, erasing the distance between them, and leaning over the bonnet of the car. But just as his lips brushed hers, he shot upright. "Did you feel that?"

"If you want me to feel something, Doctor, you're gonna to have to come a bit closer," she quipped, but he evidently hadn't even heard her because he was peering around, eyes wide, just about spinning in place.

"Bioelectric resonance. Of course, of course. It's right here–no–" He stopped and sidestepped to the left. "Here." He spun to face her, holding out his open hand. "Rose, the transporter."

"Just remember it's our only one," she said, handing it over to him.

He began tinkering with the settings, his face a mask of utter concentration. "There!" He pressed one of the side buttons and grinned triumphantly as miniature lightning bolts began to crackling in the air in front of him. They increased in number, growing into an nest of hissing, spitting blue bolts.

"What is it?"

"It's a dampening field, meant to divert attention from something. I managed to tune the transporter's frequency to match this little hiding place and _voilà_!"

Rose slid off the car bonnet and to inspect the mass of electricity, eyes narrowing as she peered into it. "Is there something... in there?" At the centre of the blue knot of electrical current was something that resembled nothing so much as a glowing, crystalline egg.

"It's a dimensional stabilizer. Bit like a car jack. Your Thomas imposter tagged along when you came back to this world but he wanted to make sure that this time he wouldn't get stranded on one side or the other. So, he set up this little beauty and masked it in an energy field."

"All right," she said with a nod, "so this... egg thing... it's what's preventing the dimensional retroclosure. But what about the other holes?"

"Cracks," the Doctor said, his expression serious as he tilted his head and observed the sizzling blue energy field. "Just like when Torchwood started experimenting with the breach. Smaller though. The damage isn't spreading nearly as quickly."

"Can you stop it?"

He drew in a deep breath and let it out in a defeated sort of "oof". "Not without causing a cascade effect that could bring down the walls between both worlds and sending us all spinning into the void."

"That would be a 'no' then." The night air was still except for the crackling hiss of the dampening field. London should never be this quiet. Rose looked up again at the sky, the stolen planets looming over the city like angry moons. And up among them was the Dalek fleet. It was strange to think that she was up there too–she and the Doctor. Did he–her human Doctor–even exist yet? Was he being born at this very instant somewhere up there in the firmament?

Circling the stabilizer, the Doctor inspected the dampening field from every angle. "I'd need to find what's generating it and shut it down at the source."

Rose tore her attention away from the sky and her past, which was happening right now, at this very moment. "Suppose we need to track down our imposter then."

"Looks like that, yeah," he said, still mesmerized by the crackling net of energy.

"I've been thinking about that. You suppose," Rose began slowly, "it could be a... Rutan?"

That was enough to draw the Doctor's attention away from the dampening field. "What makes you say that?"

Rose shrugged. "Just that who else would want to sabotage the Sontarans? With the coronic acid and all."

"Well," he drawled, "the Rutans aren't the Sontarans' only enemy–just their favourite. You see, the Rutans function as part of a hive mind so it's not often you see one all by its lonesome."

"What about the lizard thing from this morning? You said the Rutans use them. Where'd it come from?"

The Doctor paused to tug at his collar and then at his bow tie. "A derelict ship. The systems had activated on their own after a while–some sort of fluke reboot. Couldn't have been abandoned that long."

"Since Canary Wharf maybe?"

He nodded. He began to pace, his face scrunching up again. "They can generate bioelectrical fields and absorb electric current."

"So the dimming lights at the gallery–not an electrical problem."

"No. And then it tried to murder someone using the current it absorbed."

"The president," Rose said.

The Doctor stopped and held up a finger. "But she wasn't the only one on that stage."

Rose nodded. "The whole thing was metal so the current would've travelled right through it. But why bother? There was only Goddard and Jake and the Scotland Yard blokes."

The Doctor's expression turned pained. "I really didn't want it to be the Rutans. They're not individuals; you can't reason with them."

Eyebrow raised, Rose peered at him for a few seconds. "You've run into them before, yeah?"

"Stumbled across one on earth–ooh–ages ago. Back when I used to really like scarves," he said, tugging once more at the bow tie.

"And what happened to it?"

"I blew it up. With a mortar."

After all the adventures she'd had with the Doctor, nothing should surprise her, but somehow he always managed to anyway. "Right then. I'll check the vaults when we go back to work–maybe we have a spare mortar lying round."

"A flamethrower would work too. They're from an icebound planet so heat doesn't particularly agree with them."

"You know I left mine at home; it didn't go with the shoes," Rose said, raising the toe of one high heel.

He reached into his pocket and began tinkering with the dimensional transporter. "If I can get the timing just right we should be able to get back just after we left. Roberts the Rutan will have used up all his stored power so he may not be able to revert to his human form right away. Up for a chase?" And then he grinned at her.

Again, Rose glanced down at her high-heeled shoes and sighed. This was the last time she wore something impractical when she was out with the Doctor. He gave the dampening field with its glowing egg-like centre one more glance and then faced to Rose to return her dimensional transporter. Strictly speaking, they were meant only to be used by one person at a time, but she knew firsthand that they could carry two in a pinch as long as you kept close. She hooked her arm through the Doctor's, but she paused then to look up at him. "Doctor?"

"Hm?" He glanced over at her.

"I know that cracks in reality are bad and end of the world and all that, but I'm still glad we got to travel like this."

"Like old times," he said, smiling.

"'Cept for this part," she said, standing up on her tip toes to press her lips to his.

When he was free to speak again, he was smiling. "That part is a definite improvement."

And then, arm in arm, they returned to that other world.


	11. Ten

**Ten**

They materialized on the metal stage where Harriet Jones was still standing and staring, while her security attachés were just now crowding around her and insisting that she remove to a safer location.

"Doctor, what in the world–" Harriet began but the Doctor grabbed Rose's hand and was already heading off the stage.

"Sorry, hostile alien to track down. We'll send you a copy of the official report when we're done."

And then they were running towards the gallery hallway that opened up behind the wire-frame sculpture. If their Rutan had reverted to its original shape, this was the only escape route it could have used.

The corridor opened up into a circular gallery, filled with more sculptures that varied from the concrete to the abstract. Potlights glowed dimly overhead, providing minimal illumination and casting monstrous shadows over the floor. The walls curved around them and they appeared to be covered in some sort of variegated wallpaper.

They crept among displays, moving methodically through the room, her nerves growing raw as minute after minute ticked by. It occurred to Rose that she hadn't actually asked what a Rutan looked like, but, given what she'd heard from the Doctor, she figured she'd probably know it when she saw it.

"Thomas Roberts," the Doctor called out, his eyes scanning back and forth across the room. "That's what you've been calling yourself, isn't it? Thomas Roberts, the fellow you got the dimensional transporter from."

Silence.

They'd almost reached the far end of the gallery and it was only now, as they neared the curve of the far wall that Rose realized that it was not wallpaper that covered the walls: it was photographs.

She stopped dead, her stomach knotted and churning, and stared at them.

"Rose?"

Taking a deep breath, Rose stepped closer to the wall. In the dim light it was difficult to make out the inscriptions, but as her eyes flicked from one photograph to the next, it became obvious what she was looking at. Beneath each photograph was a name and two dates. In every case, the second date was the same: February 1, 2007. The date of the Cybermen attack. "It's a memorial wall," Rose said.

The Doctor joined her, glancing up and down the wall. The photos spanned the entire length of the room. "There are thousands of them."

A shiver travelled down Rose's spine and she hugged her arms around herself. "God. I hope there isn't something like this back home." The thought of a memorial with her and her mum's pictures and the date of their "deaths," chilled her. Like someone walking over your grave. She looked up at him. "You don't think they have something like this back home, do you?"

He must have had the same thought about the pictures because a truly distraught looked flashed over his features. "No, no I don't think so." He jutted his chin towards the exit. "We should, you know..."

"Yeah," Rose murmured and followed him to the arched doorway.

From there, the gallery branched into several more small exhibit halls filled with canvases. Time slowed to a crawl as they wandered through the galleries, and all the while the Rutan must be gathering its strength, ready to take on human form again. It was only after the third gallery that, off to one side, Rose glimpsed a door with the words "staff only" in big bold letters. The door was ajar and a faint green glow emanated from within.

"And what do we have here?" the Doctor said as he reached for the door handle. "Now if I were a Rutan in need of a recharge, where would I be?" He swung the door open.

The source of the green glow hovered next to a fuse box on the far wall. It stood upright, not on legs, but on several green tendrils–six maybe, though it was hard to be certain–which supported the gelatinous green mass of its body. Lines of pale sinew or veins pulsed within the mass of green, but Rose could detect nothing that resembled eyes or a mouth.

"Is that a jellyfish?" she blurted.

"Now, Rose, don't be rude. The Rutans haven't been sea creatures for three million years."

"You know of our kind." The Rutan's voice was tinny and harsh. And still she couldn't tell where the voice was coming from nor how the Rutan could see them.

The Doctor nodded. "Oh yes I've run into your kind before. You've improved your impersonation techniques. The last scout I met wasn't a very convincing human. He had trouble holding the form stable."

The Rutan bobbed slightly on its tendrils. "We are an infiltration unit, specially trained in metamophosis techniques. Assimilating the human form presents no difficulty."

One of the Rutan's tendrils slid into an empty slot in the fuse box and the lights dimmed for several seconds.

The Doctor took a step forward so that he was standing between Rose and the Rutan. His hands were jammed into his pockets and he appeared completely at his ease. "Any reason you haven't returned to the fleet? Your mission was back in the other world. Let me guess... You'd received intelligence suggesting that the Sontarans had taken an interest in Earth and you were sent to investigate."

An agitated sort of wobble shivered down the creature's tendrils in response. "The Sontaran rabble were planning to convert the planet into a clone world. We could not permit that."

"So," the Doctor said, "as soon as you got back to that world you infiltrated the ATMOS factory and added coronic acid to the formula. Did you ever stop to think what that would do to the planet's human population?"

"Primitive bipeds are of no importance."

The Doctor pursed his lips. "Oh I don't know. I find they sort of grow on you after a while." He paused to turn toward Rose and wink. "But what about your dimensional stabilizer? It's causing tears in the dimensional barrier. You need to deactivate it before the damage collapses the gap between our two worlds."

The lights dimmed once more and Rose could see electricity sparking around the Rutan's tendrils and being drawn into its gelatinous form.

"It will remain active until we have completed our mission here." Its tinny voice remained implacable. "And then we will return to our universe and wipe the Sontarans from the history of creation."

"You'll do what?"

It raised a tendril and pointed it towards the Doctor, electricity crackling around the sinuous limb. "We would prefer not to damage you, Doctor." The tendril moved slightly to the left to point at Rose and she shuddered. "The girl, however, is expendable."

"Not to me!" the Doctor snarled.

The Rutan's tendrils shuddered and it slithered towards them, electricity sparking around it. Rose lunged at the Doctor, wrapping her around his waist, and, desperately hoping thirty minutes had gone by, jammed her palm against the yellow button of her dimensional transporter.


	12. Eleven

**Eleven**

The Doctor had a millisecond to register Rose's arms circling his waist and then the now-familiar tingle of dimensional displacement.

Sunlight streamed through masses of clouds overhead, bathing the world in a bright haze. Stone and sand crunched under his shoes and the breeze carried with it a salty tang and the lull of ocean waves. As Rose's arms released him, he turned to find they were standing on a rocky outcrop overlooking a sandy beach. And an empty beach at that.

"You know," The Doctor began, his eyes scanning the shoreline below, "this looks rather like–"

And then, instead of waves, the air was filled with a sound that very nearly broke his single heart. The sound of a TARDIS.

He shoved away the rush of emotion and ducked behind the rocks. They couldn't risk being seen. "Rose," he hissed, "get down."

But Rose didn't move. She stood, staring down at the beach, and the Doctor was filled with a horrible thought. What if the man who walked out of the TARDIS wasn't his doppelganger? What if, instead, it was a future Doctor, a new regeneration, ready to throw open the doors of the TARDIS and welcome Rose inside? Just like old times.

"Rose!" he said again, more insistent. His insides were an icy knot. "Rose, please."

But she didn't move. "It's us." Her head snapped around and when she looked at him, her eyes were wild. "Doctor, it's us."

He ventured a look over the rocks in time to see them all pouring out of the TARDIS, Jackie and Rose and Donna and the Doctor. And him. He was decked out in a blue suit and red Converse, the Doctor in his brown pinstripe. They each had their hands in their pockets as they strolled the sandy shore. The wind carried Jackie's voice up to them as she announced that her son was named 'Tony'.

He ducked down again, even as he heard Donna explaining dimensional retroclosure. And then Rose's voice–the past Rose–wafted up to them, as anguished as he remembered it. "No, but– I spent all that time trying to find you. I'm not going back now."

"But you've got to."

Rose–his Rose, the one he'd walked to work with hand-in-hand this morning, who'd straightened his bow tie before the gala, who'd tugged him onto the dance floor–looked stricken.

He reached up and took her hand. "Rose," he whispered. She sank down next to him and, as their drama unfolded below, he pulled her into his arms. Head tucked under his chin, Rose squeezed her eyes shut as it played out just as they remembered it.

"I'll grow old and never regenerate," he heard his past self say. "I've only got one life, Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you... if you want."

"You'll... grow old at the same time as me?"

"Together," Rose said, curled against his chest, a moment before his past self spoke the same word. He pressed his lips to the top of her head and squeezed her tightly.

But then something happened that he'd not expected. Instead of the TARDIS calling them away, he heard the past Doctor speak again, his tone jovial as he said, "Oh and don't forget this. This universe is in need of defending. Chunk of TARDIS."

The Doctor and Rose both shot up out of their hiding place in time to see his past self catch something.

"Grow your own," the past Doctor said.

His past self peered down at the object in his hand and then back up. "That takes thousands of years."

"No, because–"

And then Donna jumped in with, "If you shatterfry the plasmic shell and modify the dimensional stabilizers to a foldback of thirty-six point three you accelerate the growth power by fifty-nine."

The two Doctors peered at one another and then, in unison, "We never thought of that."

"I'm brilliant," Donna drawled.

The past Doctor's expression grew sober once more as he turned to face the pair of them. "The Doctor, in the TARDIS, with Rose Tyler. Just as it should be."

The past Rose advanced a step. "But... what about you?"

"Oh I'm fine," the past Doctor said, tilting his head towards Donna. "I've got madam."

"Human with a Time Lord brain. Perfect combination," Donna said with a shrug. "We can travel the universe forever. Best friends. And equals. Just what skinny boy needs. An equal."

And then the sound of the TARDIS drew everyone's attention once more. The past Doctor announced that this reality was sealing itself off. Forever. Now, watching the scene from above, he might have laughed if his mind weren't racing as he tried to grasp what had just happened.

Rose had torn her gaze away from their past selves to stare at him. "What just happened? I don't–I don't remember–"

But things were happening now as he remembered them, with both Doctors standing on either side of Rose.

He crouched down behind the rocks; he didn't want to watch this. Rose sank down next to him. They waited until they heard the sound of the TARDIS, leaving them together on the beach. They waited longer until Jackie pestered them into setting off towards the nearest road. He remembered that well enough. He had held Rose's hand the whole way. Eventually a helicopter had come for them and they'd huddled in the cabin together as it flew them to the nearest airport. From there, a plane back to London. It had been his first time on an airplane in lifetimes. Rose had seemed shell-shocked, alternating between giddiness, forlornness, and fidgety nervousness when their limbs touched in the cabin seats.

It wasn't until the only sounds were the rolling waves and the cry of gulls that Rose spoke again. "Why don't we remember that?" She shook herself. "Did that even happen? Was that really us just now or maybe some sort of... I dunno... illusion?"

But something danced at the edge of his thoughts, like a dream all but forgotten in the morning. His brow furrowed. "Deja vu," he whispered.

"What?"

He turned and grasped her arms. "Earlier tonight, you told Harriet Jones that you were having deja vu. What triggered it?"

"It was when she said something about the two of us in the TARDIS."

"Right. Almost like what the Doctor said just now–The Doctor, in the TARDIS, with Rose Tyler." He nodded to himself. "It was real. Our memories have been suppressed. But they're still there." He tangled his fingers into his hair and squeezed his eyes shut. "Come on. Come on!"

"D'you think it was the Rutan? Do they have some sort of memory-alerting technology?"

"No," the Doctor replied. "But he'd infiltrated Torchwood so he'd have access to–"

"Retcon," Rose finished, groaning. Torchwood's very own amnesia pill. The most refined form of it could be used to target specific memories. "He dosed us." And then, frowning, "Not just us, yeah? Mum too. And you'd have told some of the others."

He massaged his temples, desperate to get his mind working and overcome to effects of the drug. "I'd need a power source to feed the coral. Torchwood would be able to detect something like that."

"So Goddard's probably been drugged."

"And any records would have been altered."

They fell silent, the lull of the waves washing over them. Bad Wolf Bay. Funny how they always ended up back here. This place had been their end. And their beginning. What was it now?

He glanced over at Rose. Sand marred her black gown, and one of her feet was bare, her high heel lodged in the sand nearby. There were black smudges of mascara beneath her eyes, and her hair had tumbled out of its coiffe, wisps of it dancing in the breeze. But he could have looked at her forever.

When he reached out, his thumb trailing over her cheek, he could still feel the trace of drying teardrops. She offered him a half-hearted smile. "So what we saw just now... all that... You're gonna grow a TARDIS?"

"Sound like it, yeah."

Her brow crinkled. "So how does that work? Does it start out as–what a toddler TARDIS?"

The Doctor grimaced. "No, no, it's a proto-TARDIS. It–" He broke off, his breath catching, his one heart speeding up.

Rose's eyes were wide. "We've talked about this before. I think I... I remember..."

And then he could see it.

He and Rose are in a room with white walls, crouched over the TARDIS coral. It lies on a metal platform, connected to myriad wires and devices, looking tiny and lost amid the riot of blinking lights and glinting metal. Next to him, Rose is smiling and smiling as if this is the best day of her life. He looks at her and he's grinning too, because she's there; he has her back and every day is the best day.

"I can't believe we're going to a grow a TARDIS," she says, hooking her arm around his and giving him a squeeze. "How long will it take, d'you think?"

He purses his lips, running through the mental calculation. "A few years if we can keep the power supply steady and I can get the components I need."

"So what is it in the meantime? A baby TARDIS?"

He grimaces. "No, it's a proto-TARDIS." He reaches out, fingers hovering just above the nondescript piece of coral. It looks like nothing at all, a piece of discarded sea life, but it holds within it the keys to the universe. "Once it's grown, it needs to be primed. That's the tricky bit–for me at least. Time Lords have symbiotic nuclei; they're what let us travel through time safely without problems like molecular disintegration."

Rose raises an eyebrow. "That sounds messy. I notice you didn't mention any of this when you first invited me onboard. It travels through time, you said. Didn't mention any small print."

He rocks back on his heels. "Oh no, it's fine. No really," he adds when she offers him a sceptical look. "Once the TARDIS is primed it's safe for other species."

"So what's the problem?" Rose asks.

"Symbiotic nuclei are also what allow us to regenerate. Which I can't do."

She squeezes his arm. "But you're still part Time Lord."

He nods and again, reaches out to the coral, stroking its surface. "I should still have traces of symbiotic nuclei that can imprint the TARDIS. I just need to stay close to it."

They're lying under the sheets, her skin pressed against the length of his body. She is so warm.

Why did he wait so long? Why hadn't he told her that she is everything to him? She made him alive again after he'd lost everything. Why had he thought that it didn't need saying?

Nestled into the crook of his arm, Rose glances up at him smiling. He smiles back. "So where shall we go first?"

"How about Barcelona?" Rose suggests, a glint in her eye as she adds, "Not the city–the planet."

He grins and pulls her closer. "We never did get around to visiting it, did we? I wonder if in this universe it still has dogs with no noses."

The bar is noisy and crowded but it's also bright and filled with cheers and laughter. Their laughter, all of them. Gwen and Rhys are doing shots–of something. Jake is pointing animatedly to his pint as he tells a story about his war days, fighting the Cybermen with Mickey. Ianto smiles quietly, sipping his whiskey.

Laughing, Rose glances up at him and he is laughing too. The normalness of this night of laughter and alcohol and camaraderie is new and strange and wonderful. And though Jake's story draws the laugher from him, he keeps looking to Rose. She is dazzling.

"Too bad you don't have that time machine, Doctor," Jake says as he comes to the end of pint and glances into his wallet before ordering another. "I could sure use those lotto numbers now."

Rose huffs. "And then we'd be out one security chief."

But even as she says it, her fingers find his beneath the table. They squeeze each other's hands, a silent acknowledgement of a shared secret. Their very own TARDIS, tucked away in a safe place, growing.

**ooo**

The cry of gulls filled his ears, and the Doctor gave himself a shake, pulling himself from the memory. Next to him, Rose looked dazed, her brow crinkled, her gaze unfocussed. He placed a hand on her shoulder and she started. "You remember?"

She nodded, though she was still frowning. "It's still a bit fuzzy, though. I remember seeing the coral in a room but I don't remember where it was exactly."

His fingers tangled through his hair. "It'll come back."

"And I remember when you started at Torchwood–you and Goddard were arguing. You said you'd work for them if they'd give you the resources for your project but you wouldn't tell her just what it was."

A smile quirked the Doctor's lips. "She didn't like that much, did she?"

"Don't think she liked the electrical bill either."

He grinned. "I suppose not." He paused then to glance around. "I don't see Roberts the Rutan anywhere, but he probably came through at the same time the TARDIS did, skulked around long enough to hear us talking about the coral." It irked him more than he'd like to admit that he'd been duped by a Rutan scout. And while the creature had been manipulating Torchwood to suits its ends, it had been creating fractures in the fabric of the universe with its creation of a gateway between universes. "We still need to figure out who it's been impersonating."

"I think I got an idea about that," Rose said. "Something Gwen said that didn't sound quite right..."

He mulled this over for a moment and then came to a decision. All at once the Doctor leapt to his feet and held out a hand to Rose. She took it and he pulled to her feet. "So where are we going?" she asked him.

"We're going to go back home and we're going to save our TARDIS."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** I can't tell you how much I happy I was when I first saw that deleted scene from Journey's End–and that Russell T. Davies considers it canon. If anyone hasn't seen it, just youtube doctor rose coral" and it should pop up. ;)


	13. Twelve

**Twelve**

As the Doctor and Rose walked into the Torchwood Institute that morning, he squeezed her hand more tightly than normal. He'd tried to sleep once they'd finally gotten home last night, but his mind had been racing too fast to rest. At least he'd been able to strip off the dinner jacket, in the course of which he'd taken a solemn vow never to wear one again. There was a very distinct correlation between disasters and his choice of eveningwear.

They paused before the ground-floor entrance of Canary Wharf. Though Torchwood's existence and operation in central London was public knowledge, the building still looked completely normal... until you got to the upper floors where Torchwood One operated. But the lobby itself was nothing special, a few plush couches in the waiting area, some ferns tucked into the corner, and then the security checkpoint before the elevators. They flashed their ID badges and passed through the security scanner. There were other checkpoints further up, ones that, in theory, detected things like alien technology and lifeforms. Apparently their scanners needed a software update, the Doctor thought wryly.

They were silent during the elevator ride, though he noticed Rose biting her lower lip. There was a part of him that wanted to reverse the elevator, just head back down and run and not stop running. He had lost Rose once before in this very building and this time there would be no second chances. But he couldn't abandon the TARDIS. Allowing the Rutan Host to gain access to a time machine, even one that wasn't completely functional, would be disastrous. And what was more, the TARDIS was a part of him; he couldn't abandon it.

The elevator doors slid open and they stepped out, but the Doctor hovered there for a minute, gripping Rose's hand.

"What is it?" Rose said. "I need to corner Gwen before things go mad."

He squeezed her hand. "It's going to be dangerous."

"Yeah. I'm used to that by now," she replied with a wink.

"Be careful."

And then she reached up and kissed him. And her lips were so warm, her skin so soft under his fingers; her closeness, her touch, everything about her felt right to him, as if she had been made for him–though he supposed it had been the other way around.

"For the love of God, you two, this isn't what you're paid for."

They broke apart and Doctor beamed in Goddard's direction as she headed through the security scanners and towards the elevators. "Good morning, Commander. Lovely to see you."

She glowered at him. "I'm still waiting for a report about what the hell happened last night. I had the President's people after me for hours. And now I've got Scotland Yard on my ass. I'd like to have something to tell them–if you're not too busy, Smith."

He winced at the name. He really quite disliked it that she called him that when she knew it was only an alias. In fact he rather suspected that was precisely why she did it. "We'll get right on that, Mon Capitaine!" he said, adding a mock salute.

Goddard grumbled something under her breath that didn't sound especially polite, and then announced that she was off to get some "real coffee".

Rose looked concerned as she watched their boss disappear in the elevator. "I hope she won't be long. We'll need her help to pull this off."

"Probably safer if she has her coffee first," the Doctor suggested.

And with that Rose could not disagree

**ooo**

The Doctor had just finished scanning through the power consumption logs when Adam arrived. It was amazing, the Doctor thought, that he hadn't noticed the patterns sooner. The energy readings were consistent with an emergent TARDIS, only multiplied by fifty-nine. But then it would never have occurred to him on his own that such thing was possible. No, it had taken a human with a Time Lord brain to come up with that!

"And good morning to you, Doctor," Adam said from behind him.

The Doctor sprang to his feet. "Ah you're here! Brilliant!"

Adam stared. "Well that's a different tune from yesterday."

"You're just in time. Here, take this," he said, rifling through a pile of variously shaped gizmos, and strapping one to Adam's wrist.

Adam tried to jerk his arm away, scowling at the cylindrical object now firmly attached to his wrist. "What's this?"

"Don't tell me you don't recognise that. Picture it mounted to your wrist with a red laser shooting out of it."

Adam glanced down at the object. "A Cyberman blaster."

The Doctor nodded. "Recovered and modified for use by Torchwood personnel. You were with UNIT; you must have gone through their field training."

"Of course I have," Adam snapped. "How does it work?"

"Just press the button," the Doctor said. "Though preferably not here. I'd really rather not be zapped this early in the morning." He stuffed his hands into his pockets, fingering the device he himself carried.

"I don't understand. What's going on?"

The Doctor bounded across the room, toward the exit. "We've got a code red on our hands, Mr. Mitchell! Hostile alien incursion! " And then, brow furrowed, "Or is it that code green for 'little green men'?" He shrugged and then motioned for Adam to come along. "Well come on! This isn't a drill."

"But–"

"We have stairs to climb. Lots of stairs!"

"Why can't we se the elevators?"

The Doctor tutted. "Never use elevators in an emergency. Don't they teach you anything at UNIT these days? Now come on!"

And off he jogged with Adam in tow.

**ooo**

By the time they reached the top floor of Torchwood Tower, Adam was panting like a Saint Bernard in the Sahara. The Doctor, only slightly winded, flashed a winning smile. "Almost there!" He waited for Adam to struggle up the final steps and reach the fire door.

Adam paused. "I thought," he managed between gulps of air, "the top floor was sealed." "It's been unsealed. After you."

Adam stepped through the door and the Doctor followed right behind him, blocking the exit.

They emerged at the far end of a corridor with elevator doors on either side and an opaque glass door at the far end. Neither of these items was particularly remarkable, however, when compared to the two dozen Torchwood Security staff and Special Ops members that lined the corridor, all hefting energy blasters, the huge black guns that could penetrate even the armour of a Dalek. At the far end, he could discern a familiar head of blond hair as well as all the usual suspects: Jake, Gwen, Ianto, even Goddard was lined up and wielding a very big gun.

Adam rounded on the Doctor. "What the hell?"

The Doctor tossed a gadget onto the floor. "No sudden moves please." The device activated and the blue glow of a containment field surrounded Adam. "Portable prison cell. Always handy." The Doctor moved to join the rest of the Torchwood personnel. If things went according to plan then no one would fire a shot, but even so he didn't want to stand in the line of fire.

When Adam swivelled around, every weapon in the corridor was raised. "Ms. Goddard," Adam pleaded, "what's going on? I haven't done anything."

Goddard stepped forward. "I think you've done quite enough, Mr. Mitchell. In fact, I think you could start by telling us what happened to the _real_ Adam Mitchell."

He froze. "What do you mean?"

Rose took a step forward. "D'you remember at the gallery, you said Thomas Roberts left for UNIT before you. But that ain't what really happened. The two of you left Torchwood on the exact same day."

Adam shook his head. "You're making a mistake."

"I don't think so," Rose said, reaching into her jacket and producing a sheet of paper. "Cuz you see, I've got your signature right here. The electronic files were all rewritten, but you forgot that being primitive bipeds an' all that, we still keep paper copies of things. You and Roberts both signed your transfer papers on the very same day."

The Doctor smiled amiably. "Red tape saves the day. Not often you see that happen. So, what do you say, Roberts the Rutan?"

Instead of answering, Adam raised the Cyberman blaster and aimed at the forcefield. It produced a high pitch tone that repeated at half-second intervals, but definitely no laser. "Oh didn't I mention that?" the Doctor asked. "I deactivated the laser, turned it into an alarm clock. Much less dangerous. If you press the other button there it'll play show tunes."

"Release us!" Adam demanded. But it was no longer the voice of the young Torchwood agent, but a hollow, tinny sound, that came from his lips.

"Oh I don't think do," the Doctor said, tilting his head to peer into the forcefield as the form of Adam Mitchell shimmered and faded, leaving behind the tentacled form of the Rutan. It lifted one tentacle to touch the forcefield and then drew back, hissing as smoke rose from the singed limb. "I wouldn't do that. The forcefield's lined with a heat layer and, if memory serves, Rutans and heat don't mix."

A metallic whine emanated from the Rutan. Its tentacles quivered as it said, "We are not as unprepared as you think, human-Time Lord."

And then the lights went out.


	14. Thirteen

**Thirteen**

A beam from one of the energy blasters seared the darkness, momentarily blinding the Doctor. As shouts erupted from all sides, he reached into his pocket for his sonic screwdriver... and then recalled that he didn't have one. After all, he was only half a doctor.

Emergency lights sprang to life, bathing the corridor in a reddish glow, and his eyes fixed on the spot where Rose had last been standing, searching for her in the mayhem. There! Hunched over a crumpled shape on the floor, calling for medical assistance. Safe. Relief swelled through him, and his mind began to work again. He turned in a slow circle, surveying the scene. The Rutan was nowhere in sight, but the elevator doors were open, the empty shaft like a gaping maw. A few paces away, he spotted the smoking remains of the portable prison cell.

"Code Red. Shut it down," Goddard shouted into her radio. "Yes. The whole building. And get a security detachment into the elevators."

Jake was barking orders to his team, motioning towards the stairwell, blaster at the ready, while Ianto hefted their injured comrade, a man whose name the Doctor didn't even know. Gwen turned to Rose. "Coming?"

Rose glanced in his direction and he gave a minute shake of his head. "No, not yet. Go on."

"Doctor!" He winced. Goddard only used his name when she was well and truly angry. "This isn't the time to stand around. You're our alien species consultant–so consult!"

"Looks like our Rutan made good use of his time here as Mr. Mitchell," the Doctor said. "Hacked the system, left some booby traps for us. You might want to think about getting a better encryption team."

Rose, blaster still in hand, had come to stand next to him. Goddard scowled at the two of them for a moment and then gestured towards the stairwell. "We've got a hostile alien to track down. Let's go, people." And then, glowering at him, "If you're not too busy, Smith."

"The Rutan is after what's in that room," he said, pointing towards the sealed doors at the end of the corridor. "It's not going to just run off with its tail between its legs–or its tentacles between its... tentacles." He glanced at Rose. "Did that sound a bit wrong to you?"

"Just a bit, yeah."

"Focus, Doctor, please," Goddard said, her exasperation evident–and music to his ears.

"You and your teams can secure the building but I need to stay here."

She stared hard at him. "Doctor, you are going to tell me what's in that room."

His brow furrowed and his gaze narrowed on Goddard's face as he stepped in, towering over her. "No, no I don't think I am. Because what's in there is absolutely off-limits to Torchwood. That was our agreement, remember?"

A look of confusion washed over her and he could almost see the memories swirling in her thoughts like pages swept up by an errant breeze. "I don't know what you're–"

"Yes, you do. Try harder. It'll come back to you." And then, as he saw the remainder of the Torchwood staff filing into the stairwell, "Might even come back faster with a little exercise." He gave her a nudge towards the stairs. "Get the blood flowing."

Her expression was a mix of confusion and consternation, but finally Goddard set her jaw and marched towards the fire door, leaving Rose and the Doctor alone on the top floor.

The moment her footsteps had faded, he dashed to the sealed door and began punching in numbers on the keypad. Rose hovered close by. "It's in there," she said in a whisper. "All this time, it's just been sitting there." The keypad buzzed angrily at him and flashed a red light. "Doctor?" He tried again... and got the same response. Rose touched his arm. "Did you... forget the combination?"

He ran his fingers through his hair, tugging at it, a growl of frustration pouring from his throat. "It hasn't come back to me yet. It's still all fuzzy. I know it was something important." He considered this for a moment. "Ah! A Harshad series!" That got another buzz from the lock. "Or maybe something based on absolute Euler pseudoprimes?"

But before he could try again, Rose snagged his arm. "Wait. It can't be anything like that. I knew the code too–I remember punching it in. It has to be something I'd be able to remember."

His eyes wandered to the keypad and then came to rest again on Rose's face, finding her eyes and lingering there. Something important...

The grin that spread over his features threatened to split his face in two. His fingers traipsed over the numbers in a familiar dance. The light turned green. "Voila!"

Rose was smiling too now. "You remembered! What was it?"

"5-0-0-2-5-0-3-0."

She started blankly. "And I'm supposed to remember that, how?"

"Oh it's backwards," he explained.

"Backwards?" Rose repeated.

"The date. March 5, 2005.

"Isn't that..."

He grinned at her. "The day we met."

Her hand flew to her mouth, her eyes were suddenly watery, and for a moment he could see her again as she'd been that day–nineteen and new to the world, barely more than a girl, one to whom the universe was as unknown as it was unknowable. Smiling, the Doctor held out his hand. Smiling, she took it and interlaced her fingers with his. Together they turned towards the door.

He stopped. "Before we open that, I should probably mention one tiny detail. The Rutan might be in there. Right now."

"Are you saying it knew the code and snuck in during the blackout?"

"Oh no. You see Rutans can cling to surfaces even on a vertical plane and Torchwood's lock-down procedures don't include windows."

Rose stared at him, incredulous. "Are you telling me that there's a giant alien jellyfish _clinging_ to the side of Canary Wharf?"

"Something like that, yeah."

She blinked once. "Okay." And then she hefted her blaster.

The Doctor took a deep breath and threw open the door.

He squinted against the sudden brightness. Sunlight poured in through a series of high windows on the opposite wall, illuminating the space even though the overhead lights remained off. A green glow pulsed through the room from somewhere to his left and the Doctor's single heart skipped a beat. He knew that light like the back of his hand–better even, given the number of times he'd gotten new hands. It was the glowing core of a TARDIS.

What he expected to see as he stepped fully into the room, was an early stage proto-TARDIS: a knot of coral growing around the emergent power cells which, in turn, cradled the TARDIS's hidden and unknowable heart–the very heart Rose had stared into all those years ago. That was what he expected. What he saw, instead, made his eyes go wide and his breath catch in his throat.

The green glow emanated from a meter-high crystalline formation at the back of the room. Thick bands of TARDIS coral coiled around its base and then spiralled upwards, reaching to the ceiling some six or seven meters above, like calcified trees, forming a domed canopy beneath the ceiling. Metallic filaments grew between the coral bands in a bronze web that wound around the circumference of the room, completely obscuring the huge white wall where the breach between worlds had once been opened.

"It's grown wild," he said in low tones, as if worried that he would wake it. He reached out, placing a hand against the coral. It was warm beneath his palm. "I'm so sorry," he said, stroking the spiralling coral pillar. "I'm sorry I was gone so long."

Rose turned to him, looking puzzled. "So how come it's not... you know... bigger on the inside?"

He patted the coral again, fingertips lingering on its rough surface. "The dimensional stabilizer isn't active yet."

"So if we hadn't gotten our memories back and come to check on it..."

"It would have started expanding into the rest of Canary Wharf."

His Converse-clad feet seemed to move of their own accord, drawing him towards the glow of the nascent power cells. Crouching down, he perched his trusty glasses on the bridge of his nose and inspected the power matrix. At the edge of his vision, he was aware of Rose, circling the room, blaster in hand. It should have bothered him to see her carrying one of those massive guns–because what if Torchwood had changed her? What if their time apart had taught her to shoot first and ask questions when it was more convenient–as seemed to be Torchwood's general policy. He'd have barred anyone else from carrying an energy blaster into this room. But it was Rose, and even now, if he believed in one thing, he believed in her.

"It's no wonder Goddard was worried about energy expenditures," he noted, still peering at the power cells. "Shatterfrying the plasmic shell sent the power consumption through the roof–the roof of the tallest building in London at that."

When he glanced up, he found Rose at the far end of the room, reaching out to the bronze webbing that had taken over the monstrous white wall. This was the place everything had ended for them, but now it would be the place everything began again. With Rose standing there, the power cells bathing her in a familiar green glow, the Doctor couldn't help but grin. Rose _and_ the TARDIS. Not one or the other, but both. The universe and someone to share it with.

And then he heard something that jolted him from his happy reverie. A high pitch tone, repeating at half-second intervals... like the chime of an alarm clock.

For an instant, the Doctor and Rose both froze. A chill ran down his spine as it dawned on him that the chime was coming from above. He craned his neck to peer up toward the high ceiling. It took him a second, but then, amid the thick strands of TARDIS coral, he spotted the Rutan, its tendrils clinging to the ceiling. The modified Cymberman blaster remained strapped to one of those tentacles and emitted the chime as well as a few wisps of smoke. Another tentacle, held outwards, had another, more menacing, device strapped to it, one that the Doctor was quite certain was not an alarm clock. It didn't look quite like the one from the weapons factories of Villengard that Captain Jack Harness had used, but the Doctor knew a sonic disruptor when he saw one.

Slowly, the Doctor got to his feet, hands held out in plain view. "Hello, Mr. Mitchell," he said. "Or would you prefer Roberts the Rutan? I rather like that one myself."

The voice that responded was tinny and devoid of any recognisable feeling. "Our designation is of no importance."

Stuffing his hands into his trouser pockets, the Doctor peered up at the Rutan, considering it. "What about the mighty Rutan empire? Isn't that of some importance to you? Because if you don't deactivate your dimensional stabilizer you're going to collapse both universes. Might not be a good strategic move for the Rutan Host."

The wobbly green mass shuddered slightly but the disruptor remained steadily pointed down at them. "The device will be deactivated when we return to our world. You will provide us with the necessary technology to activate your TARDIS."

The Doctor laughed. "I certainly will not. What I will do," and there he paused a moment to remove his glasses and return them to his pocket, "is let you leave safely. Torchwood won't be so generous if they capture you. You killed two of their agents, infiltrated their facilities..." He darted a glance in Rose's direction. She stood perfectly still, blaster in hand, back pressed against the wall. "They'll keep you in one of their laboratories as a guineapig–or fish, I suppose," he added with a shrug. "Now, that device you have strapped to your–"

But before he could get through the sentence, electricity sparked around the Rutan's outstretched limb and into the weapon mounted on its tendril. The disruptor fired, sending a blue beam spiralling downward. Rose ducked, but the corkscrew of blue light bored into the walls and floor around her, erasing the very ground beneath her feet.

"Rose!" The name tore from his throat as she dropped from sight. Where she'd been, there was now a gap in the building, a chunk of Canary Wharf, gone, leaving a hole that opened onto the grey London sky. The blaster had skittered across the floor and lay just ahead of the gap, but there was no sign of Rose. He shot forward but a bolt of bioelectric energy arced toward him, sending him stumbling back. "Rose!" he called again into the gale that rushed in through the gap.

"Doctor!"

He could see now a pair of slight, pale hands, clutching at the bronze webbing of the proto-TARDIS. His stomach lurched; in his mind's eye he could see her clinging to that handhold for dear life. It wasn't hard to imagine when he had seen it once before... and when he had seen her lose her grip.

The Rutan's tinny voice was not enough to make the Doctor tear his eyes from the gap. "Now, you will activate the TARDIS."

"Let me help her," the Doctor pleaded. "Let me help her and I'll do whatever you want."

"No!" he heard Rose call back. One of her hands dropped its hold, and he moved towards her. "No, Doctor, I'm all right. I've got–"

Another jolt of bioelectric energy shot to the floor between them. Rose's knuckles were white with the strain of her grip. His single human heart hammered, blood pounding in his ears, and he couldn't think. No psychic paper, no sonic screwdriver, no plan. Just Rose. Falling.

Another crackle of electricity from the ceiling. "You will assist us."

"No," said Rose, her voice steely, "he won't."

The Doctor launched himself forward. Electricity sparked around him as the Rutan's blast hit one the power cells, overloading it and illuminating the room in a blinding flash. He blinked rapidly to clear his eyes, but when he looked again, Rose's hand was gone.


	15. Fourteen

**Fourteen**

"Rose!" The Doctor scrambled to the edge of the gap, pushing against the rush of wind, his unbuttoned jacket flapping around him like wings. Leaning down, he stared into the void. There was nothing. Just the side of the tower going down and down, the ground like a distant planet below.

Rose was gone.

The blood drained from his face. He felt as if it were draining out of his whole body, like he'd been punctured somehow, hollowing him out, leaving only a husk. No psychic paper, no sonic screwdriver, no plan, and now, not even Rose. What good was all of space and time without her to share it with?

And then the hollowness was filled with anger, the rage of a Time Lord, as white hot and searing as the heart of a star. He had seen the death of stars, of his race, of whole galaxies and the universe itself. What was one Rutan in the face of that?

The Doctor lunged towards Rose's discarded blaster, grabbing hold of it and then rolling to fire off a shot at the ceiling. The blast struck the metallic structure the Rutan clung to, and it crumpled with a metallic groan. The Rutan was sent flying and landed in a heap on the floor, puffs of smoke rising from the Cyberman weapons still strapped to its tendril. The sonic blaster lay at the Doctor's feet. He kicked it to one side. And then he marched up to the Rutan, blaster pointed toward the pulsing green mass of its body. His face was a mask of rage. It boiled up in molten flows, so that his fingers felt hot around the trigger of the blaster.

_I never would._ He had said that once as he'd stood over the man who'd murdered the girl who'd almost been his daughter. _A man who never would_. But he wasn't that man. No, he'd been born in battle, full of blood and anger and revenge. And without Rose, he would never be that man again.

His finger curled around the trigger.

"Doctor!"

He froze. A faraway voice, an echo that made him hesitate.

"Doctor!"

But it was closer this time. It was real. It was– "Rose?" he called out, scanning the room even as he kept the blaster trained on the Rutan.

He heard footsteps from behind him and laboured breathing. "Doctor. I'm–I'm all right," she managed between breaths.

"Rose!" He wanted to pull her into his arms, and feel her heat and the rise and fall of her chest and the thrum of her heartbeat and know she was well and truly here and alive. But the twitch of the Rutan's tendrils set his blood boiling again. "No you don't," he snarled at the Rutan. "No more second chances."

"Doctor, I'm right here," Rose said again, as if he hadn't heard her the first time. "I'm fine. See?" She came to stand behind him, winded, but otherwise looking none the worse for wear. "I had my dimensional transporter. This morning, before we headed out, I made sure the time vortex manipulator was disengaged. But it sent me ten stories down. Had to take the stairs back up."

And still he couldn't look at her. The Rutan had tried to steal his TARDIS and use the technology to help the Rutan Host commit genocide. It had murdered two members of Torchwood and had very nearly killed Rose as well. He'd offered it a way out and it had refused. No second chances. He was that sort of a man.

He raised the blaster again.

A hand clamped around his arm. "Doctor," Rose said quietly, "do you remember the last time I saw you holding a big gun?"

And he did. He'd been pointing it at the shell of a sickly Dalek, back when he'd been another man entirely.

"What about you, Doctor?" Rose said, just as she had all those years ago. "What the hell are _you_ changing into?" But she said it softly, without challenge, or anger. It was a whisper, a reminder, as she squeezed his arm.

He lowered the gun, letting the barrel point to the floor, and looked at Rose. Her eyes were glistening, but a smile spread across her face like sunlight piercing the clouds. And clouds there were–of smoke–rising from the Cyberman device strapped to one of the Rutan's limbs.

"Right then," the Doctor began, tilting his head to try to get a better look at the device. "As I tried to mention earlier, we really should get that blaster off of you. Your bioelectric shocks risk overriding its circuits and when that happens..." His face scrunched up. "Well let's just say the end results might be a tad messy."

The Rutan's voice was as tinny and emotionless as ever. "This scout is of no importance. The Rutan Host must be victorious."

"Oh don't be like that," the Doctor said. "We'll just send you back to your world and you can fight the Sontarans all you like."

A sort of hiss that might have been scoffing or amused–there was really no way to tell–poured out of the Rutan. A green glow began emanate from its body. Rose darted back. The Doctor's hands tightened around the blaster as he detected the crackle of energy; however it wasn't coming from the Rutan, but from somewhere behind it. He blinked and when he looked again, a tear had opened up in the fabric of reality, a fizzling, crackling wound. "I see," he said, understanding dawning on him. "Your dimensional stabilizer is linked to your bioelectric frequency, isn't it? Once you established the link you didn't even need a dimensional transporter to travel between worlds."

Sparks were leaping out of the Cyberman blaster and the Rutan's tendril twitched and writhed. "We will summon the Rutan Host to claim your TARDIS."

"You can't do that," Rose said. "Torchwood ran scenarios on that during the cannon testing. That's why we always used small teams. If you try to bring a large volume over from one world to another, you can exceed the dimensional threshold. And..."

"And causes the two universes to collapse in on each other," the Doctor finished.

"Only we can deactivate the device," the Rutan said. The Doctor's mind was like quicksilver and a fraction of a second after the Rutan had spoken the words, he understood the implications of that statement. But thoughts moved faster than the physical world and understanding could not save them from what was about to happen.

The Doctor snagged Rose's arm and pulled her behind a pillar of coral just as the Rutan's body flared with bioelectric energy. It crackled along the length of its tendrils and through the Cyberman blaster. A high pitch whine shattered the air as the blaster's circuits reached critical... and overloaded.

A bang like reverberating thunder and then bits of charred Rutan spewed around the room with a wet smack.

For several seconds Rose and the Doctor remained huddled behind the pillar, but as the echo of the explosion faded, their ears were filled with the fizzling from the vortex of energy in the centre of the room.

"No, no, no," the Doctor muttered, stepping out from their shelter. He ran his fingers through his hair. A plan. He needed a plan. "We need to override the dimensional stabilizer manually. Without the Rutan's bioelectric signal it could stay open indefinitely. I need a plasma cannon. Or a fission grenade. Or... a sonic screwdriver."

"Will this do?" Rose asked, and tossed something in his direction.

He caught it and found himself staring down at the Rutan's sonic disruptor. A grin spreading across his face, he looked up at Rose. "Brilliant!"

It took his nimble fingers only a moment to crack open the casing and adjust the settings. Molecular disruption wasn't his aim; he needed something that could cut through the energy field surrounding the dimensional stabilizer and shut it down. Preferably without causing a cascade effect that would send both universes crashing into one another.

"It's gettin' wider," Rose called out from behind the coral pillar.

He glanced up for a split second only to confirm that the vortex was indeed widening. "Almost there. Come on."

The proto-TARDIS's power cells began to hum, pulsing with green light. He kept working. A tremor rippled under his feet and he had to pause to keep his hand steady.

"Doctor!" Rose shouted.

"Almost done!"

He reversed the polarity of the energy matrix and then snapped the casing back into place. Glancing up, he was about to announce his success, but instead his eyes fixed on the vortex, widening with each second that passed. Through the crackling energy, he could see the London sky as it had been the night he'd been born, the bright globes of the missing planets standing vigil over the lost earth. And that was not something he wanted to have colliding with this reality.

He took a step towards the dimensional vortex, but the cascade effect had already begun. He could feel the gravity of the other universe tugging at him, making time seem to slow around him and threatening to pull apart the molecules of his body. Every step closer was like walking into gale-force winds that one moment shoved him back, and the next, plucked at his clothes and limbs and all the pieces of him like they would tear him to shreds. The Doctor gritted his teeth and moved forward.

His arm shook as he struggled to hold it up against the force of the dimensional imbalance. He steadied it with his other hand and aimed into the heart of the vortex. The disruptor whined to life and a blue beam spiralled out of it, shooting through the vortex and homing in on the Rutan's stabilizer. The beam pierced the web of energy surrounding the egg-shaped orb. With a thunderous boom, the orb shattered.

The vortex began to close in on itself, streams of energy cracking around it and getting pulled back into the other world, like water circling a drain. The force of it pulled his feet out from under him and he felt himself being dragged toward the vortex. His hand scrabbled for purchase, but there was nothing to grab onto. His raised his eyes to see Rose clinging to the coral pillar, too far to reach him.

"Doctor!" Rose screamed, flinging something across the floor. His hand shot out to catch it before it could get pulled in too. He didn't need to stop and think; as the vortex sucked him in, he pushed the big yellow button one last time.

The effect of a dimensional transporter being activated within the field of a dimensional vortex was explosive. The force of the feedback sent him flying, energy streaming around him like a comet's tail. But Time Lords weren't meant to fly; instead, as they so often did, the Doctor crashed.

When he opened his eyes, a blurry figure was standing over him, surrounded by a halo of light. Ears ringing, he struggled to make out the words pouring from the figure's mouth. His name. It was calling his name.

"Doctor. Doctor!"

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to clear his vision. "Rose," he murmured as she finally came into focus, the halo of light resolving into her blond hair.

She leaned down, cupping his face in her hands and pressing her forehead to his. "Don't do that." Her voice was taut with emotion, tears trailing down her cheeks. "You can't just regenerate anymore. You said you were gonna spend your life with me, yeah?"

"Rose..."

"You have to stay safe, d'you understand? I want you safe. You're _my_ Doctor. "

But he couldn't answer her. The words had taken his breath._ I want you safe. My Doctor._

All this time he'd felt like an imposter when, in reality, everything that had happened since the day he'd met Rose had been leading up to this. And she'd told him. She'd told him. _I can see everything. All that is. All that was. All that ever could be._ She had seen them now, in this instant. Him, not as he'd been then, but as he was now: her Doctor.

"Are you all right?" Rose asked, worry creeping into her tone. It was only then that he fully realized that he was lying on the floor, staring up at her in–he was sure–a rather dazed manner. "D'you need help? D'you need a doctor?"

He sat up, a grin threatening to split his face. "I _am_ the Doctor." And then he kissed her quite thoroughly.


End file.
